


What we find in the shadows

by PunkyNemo (TheVampireCat)



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Bad Decisions, Belonging, Death of a pet, F/M, Frank dealing with his demons, I strongly suggest that you don't read them unless you are worried about triggers, Karen dealing with hers, Kidnapping, Kinda freeform, Love, Miscarriage, Murder, Okay please note these tags will have spoilers in them for the whole story, PTSD, Set post season 1 of The Punisher, Sexual Situations, So much angst, This story has a karedevil component but it is really not something karedevil fans will like, Too much angst for a Christmas gift, big mistakes, it is not a karedevil story in any real sense, many apologies for that, so much love, sometimes it is, sometimes love isn't enough, what is 'home'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 00:59:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13155798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVampireCat/pseuds/PunkyNemo
Summary: He doesn't know what he did to deserve her; what she sees in him that makes her love him almost as fiercely as he does her. There are times that it doesn't feel real and then there are other times when it feels like it's the only true thing in the world, and the thought of losing her is too much for him to bear.But she said she'd stay. She said she'd stay forever. And that has to be enough.It has to.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jonahsimms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonahsimms/gifts).



> Okay, so I found I have quite a lot to say about this fic but in the interests of avoiding spoilers I'm probably going to leave a more detailed author’s note at the end of chapter 2, which should be up tomorrow. However right now I want to say I am sorry. I loved writing it, it was something I really wanted to do but I do realise that as a secret Santa gift it might be a little dark and angsty. (Jonah Simms did say she was cool with angst though.)
> 
> This story is messy. There’s a lot of feelings here, a lot of layers of emotion. In some sense it’s ugly, but I kind of think it’s ugly in a beautiful way (yes that was me blowing my own trumpet).
> 
> I admit it was tough and I have never written anything quite like this and I hope you enjoy it - if “enjoy” is the right word.
> 
> Also I do need to acknowledge that _The Crow_ graphic novel by James O’Barr was hugely influential in some aspects of this story. Not so much that this could be considered a crossover, but maybe just in tone and atmosphere. A lot of this story was influenced by its final line "It's forever now" and that is a theme that crops up in this over and over again.
> 
> Please leave me a review if this story spoke to you at all.

_She makes a beautiful bride._

 

_He always knew she would. She’d be all shimmering diamonds and porcelain skin; soft curves and hard edges underneath her dress, and eyes so blue it would hurt to look at her._

 

_He realises now he imagined it more than he cares to admit._

 

_But this isn't about him. Not at all in fact. Nothing in the world has ever been less about him. This is about Karen Page and only Karen Page, and everyone here knows it as they stand in their pews and turn to look at her._

 

_She makes a really beautiful bride._

 

_Dressed in smooth white satin, her hair shining like spun gold and glittering with crystals, she makes her way slowly down the aisle, the gothic backdrop of the cathedral dramatic and gloomy behind her._

 

_It should be at odds with who she is and in many ways it might be, but the dark wood and the somewhat grotesque statues only make her shine brighter, purer._

 

_She chases the shadows away._

 

_She always has._

 

~~~

 

They find their way back to each other in the end. They always do. They always will.

 

Months after he saved her from Lewis and she gave him a tiny moment of peace in that elevator, Frank falls to his knees before her, tells her he loves her, he wants her, and then he begs forgiveness for all those things.

 

She gives it without question. Without caveat.

 

She cradles his beaten and bruised face in her hands, presses her forehead to his and lays a kiss on his brow; promises everything will be okay. She's here now and she’ll help him carry his pain if he promises to keep her safe. She's giving that to him even though she doesn’t need to, but only because she knows he wants it more than anything else in the whole world.

 

And he clings to her, arms wrapped around her waist and head buried in her belly, while he sobs.

 

Later he asks her if she’ll stay with him. He says he's not fixed - he's nowhere near any working definition of “okay” - and might never be, but he wants to be with her if she’ll have him.

 

She kisses his eyes and his cheeks, his nose, his jaw and finally his mouth, and she tells him she will. She’ll stay.

 

Forever.

 

~~~

 

_Sometimes, when he thinks about it, he's not sure how he got here. Not just here to today, to this cold church with its stained glass windows - although that's part of it too - but back to this life, this little world of Hell’s Kitchen that doesn't feel so little anymore._

 

~~~

 

They sit on her couch holding hands and she asks him why he came back - what brought him here - and he doesn't have an answer. The truth is he had no intention of ever coming back after the night he saw her watching him from the sidewalk. The night he saved Red’s life. He had no intention of ever coming back after Rawlins and Russo either. He wanted to disappear and for a while he did. Things were simpler that way. He could cry, he could hurt, he could punish. He could do all these things away from her disappointment and pity.

 

But he couldn't. Not really. It was a lie. And he doesn't lie.

 

He tells her that a lot of the time between is just a blur, an endless stream of shadows and blood; fires burning and loss shaking around like a living thing in his heart.

 

But when she presses him gently and reaches up to touch his jaw, run her fingers over his lips, he knows he has to try harder. So he does. He tells her the truth. He tells her everything.

 

If he had to pinpoint an actual physical honest-to-God concrete reason for his return, he'd say it was Fisk.

 

And it was. It was.

 

But it wasn't all of it. Not by a long shot.

 

He thought about her all the time. He wanted to come back, to see her and talk to her, beg that forgiveness she gave up so willingly. He didn't want to be without her. He didn't want to be without that part of himself, so unlike him and yet so similar.

 

He thinks she might feel the same.

 

He tells her that too, puts it out there for her to deny or dispute and she does neither because she doesn't lie to him. But she does take a breath and close her eyes, swallow hard. And, as he wipes her tears away with his thumb, he realises what this does to her, what loving him feels like to her, and he promises himself that it won't always be like this. He’ll fix it, he'll make it right. He’ll make her happy if it's the last thing he does.

 

But then she’s looking at him again and she asks him to go on. She wants to know everything, and, because he doesn't lie to her either - not even to spare her -, he does.

 

He tells her about group and Curtis. He tells her about how he tried so hard to make himself better and how in some ways he succeeded, how in others he failed, and how in some final nebulous category, he's still trying. Trying _so_ hard. Hard as he can.

 

“Ain't right for me to put that on anyone else,” he says and her breath catches in her throat. “Ain't right to ask them to fix me.”

 

“And now?” she asks and he doesn't know what to say. All he can tell her is that he's here and he doesn't want to leave again and beg her not to ask him to.

 

She promises she won't. She _promises_.

 

He blinks tears out of his eyes, looks away as she leans in, lays a kiss on his brow, asks him to continue.

 

And he does.

 

He tells her Fisk put out a hit on Red. Has-been asshole mob boss wanted an end to the devil of Hell’s Kitchen. He wanted him gone. It was a stupid move overall, one that reeked of boredom and desperation, maybe even a little latent rage. What wasn't stupid though was using Karen as bait to draw Red out.

 

She winces as he says that but he pulls her close, cradles her head against his chest, tells her it wasn't her fault. Nothing in this whole mess was her fault. But something about the way she moves in his arms and the hard line of her mouth tells him she already knows that.

 

“Who did he hire? The Yakuza? The Russians?”

 

He shakes his head. None of them. Fisk decided to go old school and use a retired mercenary going by the name of Deacon. It wasn't his real name because nobody knew that. In fact nobody knew much about him at all except that he never leaves a job unfinished and he never goes back on a contract. No matter what.

 

So when Red came to him to tell him he'd fucked up and the only way he was still breathing was because Gao had, for some reason only known to her, decided to tell him about the threat to his life and Karen's by extension, he knew he had no choice.

 

Frank thinks deep down Red knew that too.

 

They’d stood on the roof of an abandoned building, the April wind whipping his hair and stinging his skin and he listened to Murdock talk. Listened to Murdock lie to himself about how they could make this work, how no one needed to get hurt. And it wasn't long before his plans started to sound like pleading and his lack of belief became a litany all of its own.

 

And when Red was finally quiet and the sounds of the city faded to a muffled drone, the wind dropped and he took that as his cue to speak.

 

“You know how this ends Red. You know. He can't get back up again.”

 

He didn't miss the pained expression under Murdock’s mask nor the way he cringed at his words.

 

“I could ask Mahoney…”

 

“No, you can't.”

 

“We can't kill him.”

 

“ _We_ can’t. _I_ can.”

 

“Frank…”

 

“Maybe you can watch her die. I won’t.”

 

And it was when he said it, when the words actually came out of his mouth and he saw Maria lying in a pool of her own blood, pink clumps of brain matter streaking her dress, that he understood. He realised no matter how far he ran away from Karen Page, he'd always come back.

 

They always find their way back to each other in the end.

 

Frank pulls away then so he can look her in the eye. He needs her to see that he’s not willing to give her anything that isn't God’s honest truth.

 

He tells her he did what Red couldn't. He killed Deacon - tied him to a chair in an abandoned warehouse and set him on fire. He didn't even wait for his screams to stop.

 

“And then what?” she asks moving back into him so that her arms are tight around his waist and her head rests on his shoulder.

 

“And then I came here.”

 

_With Maria’s voice in my head I came to find you and beg you not to make me leave._

 

~~~

 

_St Anthony’s cathedral. The saint of lost things. He wonders if she knew what she was doing when she chose it._

 

~~~

 

He moves in. He doesn't have much except some guns, a laptop and his clothes. And then of course there's Atlas, an aging pitbull he found abused and abandoned in New Orleans when he was working a job down there.

 

He's big and clumsy and, despite countless visits to the vet, his breath smells like something died in his throat. But he's also sweet and sappy and Karen loves him from the second she meets him. The feeling’s mutual and within days it’s hard to believe Atlas ever knew anything other than the safety of Karen Page’s love.

 

~~~

 

_He gave her the power to destroy him. He just never thought he’d give her a reason to use it._

 

~~~

 

The first time he takes her to bed, it feels like she cuts his soul out of his body and leaves him bleeding and broken on her floor. It's a singular pleasure so sharp, so hard, so all consuming that he fights for air and for breath and for her.

 

Mostly for her.

 

And when he looks down at her, his fingers tangled in her hair and her breasts dotted with sweat, both his and hers, she says his name and destroys him all over again.

 

~~~

 

_She doesn't wear a veil, and the crystal pins glitter like diamonds in her hair._

 

Are you mine? _He wants to ask her as she comes closer._ You said you were once. You said forever. When is it time for forever?

 

~~~

 

He stops punishing. She doesn't ask him to but he does it anyway. It doesn't seem right - _decent_ \- to bring this to her. He doesn't want to taint her with the blood of dead men any more than he already has.

 

He’s home. And he's tired. He's just so tired.

 

For the second time he burns the skull chest piece in a rusted metal drum under a bridge. He puts his guns into storage too. He lets someone else pick up the slack. Lets Red shine with his goodness and righteousness, bring bad men to justice and then bring them to trial. Put them down so they can get back up again.

 

He misses it though. He misses the killing, the torturing, that catharsis he gets from cleaning the streets even as he dirties them with blood and bones.

 

Sometimes he’ll notice his trigger finger twitching, long for that click of a hammer, the feel of cold steel in his hands.

 

Karen notices too. She can't not.

 

When it gets really bad she’ll reach out and cover his hand with her own, squeeze his fingers.

 

 _You're mine and I love you,_ she whispers. _I love all of you. Even that bit. Even the bad parts_.

 

He asks her not to lie to him and she tells him she isn't, and he believes her.

 

So he asks her why. Why does she love the bad parts? And she smiles that special smile he's only seen a few fleeting times. The one that's not beautiful but turns him inside out and upside down all the same.

 

_Because the bad parts are mine too._

 

 _Will you stay?_ He asks. _Even when it gets bad. Will you stay?_

 

_Forever._

 

_But how long is forever?_

 

She doesn't answer. He doesn't think she knows.

 

~~~

 

_Outside the rain beats hard against the stained glass windows and the wind howls. He's not sure how she kept her dress dry but he can see tiny drops of water glistening on her naked arms. It makes her shimmer in the candlelight, makes her look more angel than human._

 

_She always was anyway._

 

~~~

 

They lie in her bed, Atlas snoring softly between their feet.

 

They're both naked and in the dim light he can see her hair spread across the pillow like a starburst of liquid gold now turned silver. She's breathing hard and fast but her skin is pebbled with gooseflesh and her nipples stand hard and erect, still shining from his saliva.

 

It hurts to look at her.

 

It always has.

 

He pushes himself up on an elbow, leans over and scrapes his teeth down her neck, makes her shiver.

 

She's everything. He can't imagine his life without her. He tries not to think about the fact that once he couldn't imagine his life without Maria either.

 

He kisses her cheek, her jaw and then her lips, lets her drink herself out of his mouth, drown in her own her taste the same way he does. She's sweet. She's so so sweet.

 

He falls back on the pillows, watches the lights from outside dance across the walls.

 

Her hands tangle in his hair.

 

“Got so long, sometimes I don't know whether this is you or the dog anymore,” she whispers and he snorts.

 

“It doesn't matter,” he says leaning into her hand and kissing her palm. “None of it matters except you.”

 

“No,” she whispers. “You matter too. You need to remember that.”

 

~~~

 

_Claire is the maid of honour. She's beautiful but her expression is grimmer than the day outside._

 

~~~

 

She calls in sick to work. The Chinese he brought home last night when neither of them wanted to cook has left her grey and wan. Feverish. Frank's alright though but he makes a mental note never to go back. He should have known that nothing good could come of a place that does tacos, “authentic” sushi _and_ Chinese with breadsticks on the side.

 

Karen's moody and sore, whiny even, which is unusual for her no matter what the situation. Still, it's a good day. He looks after her, holds her hair back while she hugs the toilet and spews her guts out.

 

“Didn't know you were a time traveller,” he says when he gets her back into bed, cold cloth pressed to her brow.

 

“Huh?”

 

“The only way someone could have that much puke in them is if you're throwing up food you haven't eaten yet.”

 

It sounded funnier in his head. It really did. She's not amused and she fumbles with the sheet, turns onto her side and draws her knees up to her stomach.

 

“You're hilarious,” she says morbidly and he barks out a laugh, rubs her shoulder.

 

“I'm here all week.” His voice is low, sincere.

 

He touches her cheek with the back of his hand.

 

“Love you,” he whispers.

 

“I love you too.”

 

Later he brings her dry toast and chicken soup and they watch a terrible movie about rabid killer beavers chasing half-naked women around an island. They turn the sound off and make up their own dialogue and soon he has her laughing so hard that tears spring into her eyes.

 

He rests his hand on her belly. It's smooth and flat, her skin soft and pale.

 

She's sick, but it's a good day.

 

~~~

 

_The bridal march sounds like a dirge._

 

~~~

 

He's just starting to get complacent when everything falls apart.

 

Karen’s back at work. She’s still not 100% but she is on the mend as far as he can see. And that's when life comes to kick them in the balls as hard as it can.

 

She’s out one night when he gets a call from Nelson which is strange to begin with. They're not close and he knows as Karen's Designated Best Friend and Murdock’s conscience, it's Foggy’s job to worry about her shacking up with a “psycho murderer” and make disapproving noises at every opportunity.

 

But this isn't about disapproving noises. This isn't about how bad Frank is for her and why they shouldn't be together.

 

Except it is. It really is.

 

It starts out easy enough. She was meeting Foggy for dinner. Nothing fancy. Just a drink or two at Josie’s and some snacks if she thought her stomach could handle it.

 

He knew this already but he can sense where this is going. He can almost hear it in the background noise, taste it in air.

 

She's not there. Foggy’s been waiting for more than an hour and she’s not picking up her phone. He's called the office, he's called Murdock and Claire. He's even called her fucking asshole boss and no one knows where she is.

 

“You shoulda called me first,” he says. “Goddamnit Nelson.”

 

“I'm calling you now.”

 

But Frank’s not listening anymore. He drops the phone onto the bed, startling Atlas out of his early evening nap, and goes to his draw. The keys for his storage locker glimmer like silver in the dim light.

 

He can't help but think it looks like a dare.

 

~~~

 

_The door to the vestry flies open, bangs against the dark wooden walls. An usher gets up to close it, twisting the handle hard to make sure it sticks._

 

_Just as well. You can't get married behind locked doors anyway._

 

~~~

 

What follows are some of the worst days of his life, possibly only surpassed by the dark time immediately after he woke up with a bullet in his head and three graves to dig.

 

Those graves… He dug them himself. He doesn't think anyone knows that.

 

He calls Red, asks him to work his contacts. He calls everyone else he can think of as well: David, Curtis and a few army buddies who are still talking to him. He even calls Madani but she's working a case in Arizona and she can’t be found for love or money and in the end it just feels like he’s wasting precious time.

 

He retraces Karen’s steps a million times, gets that boss of hers alone and puts the fear of God into him, forcing him to recount every interaction he had with her the day she disappeared and some before that.

 

He comes up with nothing and he thinks he's about to go out of his head. He doesn't eat. He doesn't sleep. He doesn't do anything but look for her and he finds nothing. She might as well have never existed after she left for work on the day she disappeared.

 

And then Red turns up with a little white flash drive shaped like a rose and the world falls apart again.

 

It's Deacon. His face grotesquely twisted and burned; his flesh melted and reformed and melted again, one eye milky and blind, one ear just a hole in his head. He looks like something out of a horror movie but he's worse because he isn’t.

 

He’s real and he's got her. He's got her and if Red wants her he can come and get her at a designated location which he's not all that interested in disclosing just yet. He's willing to do an exchange, same as he would have done last time if it had come to that. Only difference is this time the price is higher. This time the devil of Hell’s Kitchen isn't enough. He's enough for the contract, sure, but he wants the asshole that set him on fire too.

They're gonna need to have a little talk.

 

Oh and just in case they don't think he's serious, he'd like to show them how serious he can be. Because he is very fucking serious. Very fucking serious indeed.

 

And when the camera pans over to Karen and she's tied to a chair and her hair is ratty and bloody, Frank loses part of himself and he knows he'll never get it back. There's no point in trying. It's gone. It's gone to the same place as Maria and his children, that same place where he sees the bullets ripping through their heads, that same place where all the things he’s lost go.

 

It doesn't last long - in the grander scheme of things it's more posturing than anything else - but when Deacon’s fist connects hard with Karen’s jaw it's like the floor disappears under him and he's back at that goddamn carousel trying to hold Lisa’s little body together, screaming for Maria.

 

But this time it's her. It's her and he can't save her.

 

Sometimes he thinks he can't save anyone.

 

~~~

 

_Again it hurts to look at her. Again he can't look away._

 

~~~

 

He gets her back. Somehow. The details are fuzzy and he thinks he prefers it that way.

 

He remembers the big moments though: David pulling out all the stops and analysing the flash disk to find her location at an old abandoned farmhouse near Poughkeepsie; him hatching a plan with Murdock; calling in favours from people he’d have rather forgotten and which he correctly assumed Deacon didn't think he still had - and finally, blood spilling in rivers.

 

Blood spilling and it feels like home.

 

It always has.

 

The drive there is crystal clear, the way the traffic became thinner and thinner and the roads to the location more and more deserted; Murdock next to him, silently judging him and the simmering resentment he no doubt felt he should be above but somehow wasn't.

 

And then David with his fucking sandwiches and his laptop trying to get eyes inside the old farmhouse. He doesn't make any jokes though. He knows better than that.

 

And then it blurs again. And that's a gift too. Because Frank knows there were a few moments once they got inside that he thought she was gone. That he was convinced he’d find her in a pool of her own blood and he’d have to add another tragedy to his list of failures.

 

He remembers seeing a bloodied shoe lying next to her equally bloodied purse; a hard wooden chair with ropes around the armrests. He remembers not seeing her.

 

And somewhere in the fog there's Deacon and Frank’s grinding his burnt face into the dirty concrete floor with his fists. His bones are shattering and his blood is spurting and Frank is screaming. He’s screaming but all he can hear is silence. Silence and the empty void where she once was.

 

And then there's Red. Red…

 

And he's _not_ screaming. He’s pleading, he’s begging. He's telling him to stop just like the good righteous altar boy he is because at the end of the day, Red _doesn't get it_. Because he’ll never get it.

 

He doesn't know what this pain is like, he doesn't know what it does. He doesn't know the rage.

 

Another blur, another grey time he’ll never get back and he doesn't want to, but suddenly Murdock is dragging him off, forcing him to the ground, holding him there in a vicelike grip he didn't think him capable of.

 

“She's alive,” he says. “She’s alive. We've got her.”

 

He can't parse the words and all he wants to do is take Murdock’s head off too, rip it clean off his shoulders until nothing of the pretty boy remains. But then David steps out from behind him.

 

He's holding her, cradling her against his chest and her hair is falling like a bloodied wave over his arm.

 

“He's right,” David says. “But she needs a hospital or …”

 

“Claire,” Murdock says.

 

Frank doesn't think he will ever forget that moment; the way relief floods through him like a wave, how it feels like it changes him on a cellular level. There was The Punisher and then there was Frank. They're not the same and he wonders if they ever were or if somehow she's become the dividing line between man and dead man.

 

He looks down at Deacon, the pulp that once was his face, hears the terrible sound of his breathing through his broken nose and he even though he can feel the rage and the fire in his blood, even though he wants nothing more than to grind him into a stain on the floor, it's not enough. None of it means anything without her.

 

He goes to her, blood running down his hands, through his fingers, splashing on the floor like grotesque dead black stars.

 

Her eyes flutter open and somehow through it all she finds it within her to give him a wan smile.

 

“You came,” and her voice sounds like sandpaper.

 

The world is crumbling and the red rage in his head feels like a living thing, a demon whispering terrible truths in his ears. But somehow it's her voice, that thin sound coming out of her mouth that doesn't sound remotely like her at all, that keeps him standing. Keeps him sane.

 

He touches her face, kisses her cheek.

 

“I'll always come for you.”

 

He will. He has to. It feels like it's just one of those foundational truths that keep the world turning.

 

They always find their way back to each other in the end.

 

Behind him, he hears Deacon shuffling around floor, getting to his feet. He's entirely inconsequential, even if he isn't.

 

He takes her out of David's arms, cradles her to his chest. She stinks of sweat and more blood than she should, and she shivers against him.

 

It's not even a question.

 

He tears his eyes from her, focuses on Murdock.

 

“You finish this Red. You finish this.”

 

“Frank, I…”

 

“No! You wanna play with the big boys? You wanna be a hero? You. Finish. This.”

 

He hands Murdock his .45 and carries Karen out to his truck. David throws himself into the driver’s seat.

 

He only realises much later that he never heard gunfire.

 

~~~

 

Claire pulls the world out from under him.

 

With bloodied rags in her hands, she comes to him hours after she kicked him out of their bedroom to tell him that Karen's asleep for now. She's bruised and beaten, roughed up and badly dehydrated but she's going to be fine.

 

_The baby, however…_

 

She tried. She tried so hard but there was nothing she could do.

 

_Baby?_

 

She looks at him for a long time and her big brown eyes soften. _You didn't know?_

 

He sits back down, the world swimming and the terrible sound of screaming ringing in his ears.

 

No, no he didn't know.  

 

She touches him then, a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he realises that she's crying too.

 

“I'm sorry,” she says and he believes she really is.

 

“I couldn't save her…”

 

“But you did.” Claire’s eyes are fierce. “You both lost something but she's been through hell on top of that.”

 

She doesn't say it but he hears it anyway.

 

_Don't make it about you._

 

She disappears back into the bedroom and he feels David’s hand on his arm.

 

_I’m so sorry buddy. I’m so sorry._

 

He doesn’t answer. There’s nothing to say.

 

~~~

 

Later, when Claire and David are both gone, he climbs into their bed and pulls Karen into his arms and they grieve over something they never knew they had. And only when her sobbing stops and she falls asleep does he give himself a moment for his own guilt.

 

It's not loud or violent. It's not even angry. He cradles her to him and counts the bruises on her face and kisses each one promising he will never ever let this happen again.

 

And then he lies awake staring at the ceiling and listening to her breathe.

 

He’s the father of three dead children.

 

~~~

 

_She's chosen white lilies for the flower arrangements. It's more appropriate than he cares to admit._

 

~~~

 

She's not the same for a while after that. Neither is he. It's partly the baby and partly the trauma of what she’s gone through. She thought she was safe and then all her fears came back to show her she wasn't.

 

That’s on him.

 

He catches her watching him sometimes, her eyes red-rimmed and her skin grey and wan. And when he asks her if she's alright she doesn't answer and all he can do is hold her and bring her fingertips to his lips. Kiss them.

 

She doesn't blame him. He's sure of that. He just doesn't know why. There are times he thinks it's because she genuinely doesn't - she's that good and that perfect that the idea of blaming him never occurred to her. There are other times - darker times - when he's sure it's because she blames herself more. He never thinks there could be a third option.

 

He wants to tell her there will be others but he also doesn't want to lie to her, so he rocks her and whispers that he loves her and he thinks there might even be times when she believes him.

 

~~~

 

_Outside he hears the caw of a raven, maybe a crow. She does too and together they both look towards the massive stained glass windows. There's nothing to see. Nothing but the Madonna and the Christ child._

 

~~~

 

“Did you and Maria ever lose one? Like this I mean.”

 

She lies with her back pressed to his belly, her hands like vices on his arm. Her voice is thin, strained and even though he can’t see her face he knows she’s been crying.

 

“No,” he says. “Not that we knew of anyway.”

 

She nods slowly. “I’m sorry. You lost so much and I…”

 

She’s not usually given to this kind of melancholy or self-pity and there’s a moment he wants to call her out, tell her to stop comparing herself, to stop trying to find new ways to beat herself up over something that wasn’t her fault. But then he hears her choke back a sob and he understands.

 

He pulls her close, kisses her hair.

 

“Shhhh,” he whispers. “It’s okay. We all lost.”

 

“I hate him,” she says and he can almost taste the venom in her voice. “I hate him so much that sometimes it’s all I can feel.”

 

“I know,” he says. “I know how that is.”

 

It's one of those moments he's distinctly aware that there's a big part of Karen Page he doesn't know, that there are parts of her hidden in the shadows that he's yet to uncover.

 

But now isn't the time. It isn't the time at all.

 

She turns over and buries her face in his chest and he holds her while she cries herself to sleep.

 

~~~

 

It occurs to him once, when he catches them watching a woman pushing a stroller down the blustery streets of Hell's Kitchen that he thought this grief would be lonelier. That they'd deal with the same demons at different times. He thought he'd seek her out when the pain and the rage and the hurt became too much only to find that she’d already fought those demons and was now fighting new ones. He'd want to grieve the child and she’d want to deal with the other trauma. They’d be at odds, drenching up memories and emotions they each wish they'd be allowed to forget.

 

But it's not like that. It's not like that at all. They share the grief, fully and completely.  He's never done that before. He couldn't after Frank and Lisa. He was alone.

 

And then her hand creeps into his and she leans against him as the woman walks away and he’s not sure if this is better or worse.

 

~~~

 

_She walks herself down the aisle. Of course she does. Karen Page would never allow anyone to give her away._

 

_Even when she did._

 

~~~

 

Deacon is still out there. He's out there because of Frank’s incompetence and Red’s righteousness.

 

He wants to find him. He wants to kill him slowly, pulls his bones out of his body and make him bleed. He wants him to suffer for what he's taken.

 

Karen knows it too and sometimes he sees her vengeance running just as hot and red as his, that hint of steel in her eyes. The truth is it scares him. The darker truth is it exhilarates him.

 

She needs it but she needs him more.

 

 _Will you stay with me_ , she asks. _Will you stay with me and forsake all others? Because I will. I promise I will._

 

Yes, he’ll stay.

 

~~~

 

_It takes forever and he feels every step in his bones but eventually she stops walking, hands her bouquet of death’s flowers to Claire._

 

Are you mine? _He wants to ask her._ You said you were mine.

 

~~~

 

It's Christmas and Hell’s Kitchen explodes with tinsel and fairy lights. The grey gloomy streets suddenly become bright and upbeat. Cheerful even.

 

There are carolers on every corner and happy children playing in the snow; Santas with fake beards and fake presents ringing bells in every parking lot.

 

It's the tackiest thing he's ever seen. It's also beautiful.

 

They go out one evening to get a tree from a lot on the outskirts of the city near the forest. She chooses a big motherfucking prickly monstrosity that he has to wrestle into the back of his truck. It drops him on his ass twice before he actually manages to get it tied to the flatbed and he's cursing up a storm as he does it. But then he catches her eye and she’s smiling at him over a mug of mulled wine, the first snowflakes of the season glistening in her hair, and he doesn't care about trees or carolers or Santas with fake beards anymore. He cares about her. He cares about making her happy. As happy as he can with the sorry existence he has to offer.

 

He reaches into his pocket for his phone, snaps a picture of her and coyly she turns away.

 

He goes to her, follows her through the trees, boots crunching on the hard frosted ground. She leads him away from the people, away from the noise and the mess and the nasty things lying waiting for them in Hell’s Kitchen. She lets him catch her under the canopy of a huge scarlet oak, press her against the trunk, one knee between her legs and his hand on her face.

 

Her lips are stained red with wine and when he kisses her he can taste cinnamon and sugar on her tongue.

 

 _Is it forever now?_ she asks.

 

 _It can be,_ he whispers as his mouth finds the chilly skin of her neck. _It can be._

 

~~~

 

_Her lips aren't red now. They're a gentle shade of pink, dewy and dusky. She's chosen to highlight her eyes instead, made them dramatic and deep, the cerulean of her irises visible even in the dimness of the church._

 

_She'd still taste sweet though. Of that he's sure._

 

~~~

 

The apartment looks like something out of a fairytale and he wonders why he didn't know she could pull something like this together. She's decorated in golds and silvers, warm creams and icy blues, the tree standing tall and solid in the corner and the walls bright with wreaths and lanterns.

 

She asks him if he likes it and he tells her he does. Tells her that Lisa made them buy tiny Christmas scarves for her dinosaurs and she'd hide them between the fronds of their tree, under the baubles and between the lights.

 

For a moment she goes silent and then when she speaks her voice cracks.

 

“Is it too much? You want me to take it down?”

 

And he looks at her and he knows she would. In a heartbeat. All he would need to do is ask and she'd never hold it against him. That's how much she loves him.

 

He wants to fall to his knees. To the ground. But instead he goes to her and let's her wrap her arms around him and keep him standing.

 

He thinks about the baby they lost and for a split second it feels like someone is pulling his heart out through his throat, watching him choke and laughing at him while he gasps for air. It would have been a girl - of that he has no doubt. She'd be a month old now.

 

“No,” he whispers into her hair, tears cooling on his cheeks. “No. I want to make memories with you.”

 

~~~

 

_A single diamond sits at her throat. He gave it to her once when he thought the world could still make sense. He wonders if it's her something borrowed or something old._

 

~~~

 

They do make memories. Foggy and Claire come over for dinner on Christmas. Murdock begs off and none of them are surprised, but his absence doesn't leave too big a hole in the day.

 

It's not as tense as it should be either. Frank thinks he scored a lot of points with Foggy the night he saved Karen's life, the night they lost another. It'll never be friendship. They'll never be buddies but they are bound over a mutual commitment to do any- and everything they can for Karen Page. And that's enough. For now, it's enough.

 

For Claire it's a little different. She knows more. She saw his grief. She watched him fall apart because all his children die. She knows. And she doesn't judge. Not anymore.

 

She even takes his arm when he brings her a glass of wine, squeezes it and asks with genuine concern if he's alright.

 

He glances at Karen standing in front of the oven, laughing and half dancing with Foggy, and he tells Claire he's fine. He's always fine.

 

She said she'd stay forever and she has.

 

She will.

 

~~~

 

_“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony.”_

 

_She smiles but it doesn't go all the way to her eyes. He doesn't think it ever does anymore._

 

_Dearly beloved indeed._

 

~~~

 

He gets her a dog for Christmas. He knows it's a bad idea and the apartment is already bursting at the seams with the two of them and Atlas. But he's seen the way she's been looking for something to love and nurture; how Atlas, lovable as he may be, doesn't exactly fit the bill.

 

So that's how Rosie comes into their lives. She's small and sweet, more spaniel than anything else (although she’s from the local shelter so her origins are debatable) and Karen falls in love instantly. Almost as fast as he did.

 

Atlas’ nose is out of joint for a week or two, while he struggles to understand his demotion and, watching Karen's boundless adoration of Rosie, Frank feels much the same way.

 

But it's good. They're good. The loss eases more each day.

 

And they're not alone.

 

~~~

 

_Her something blue is her melancholy. It's his too._

 

~~~

 

She wants to move out of the city. She tells him one night as they lie in her bed, sweaty and sated from each other.

 

She's on her stomach with her face turned towards him and he’s trailing his fingertips down her back, feeling more than seeing how her skin tightens into goosebumps and not missing the way she subtly grinds her hips into the mattress, the slight arch of her shoulders as she does.

 

“Yeah?” he asks.

 

She nods and he takes a moment to stop touching her and push damp hair off her forehead.

 

“The newspaper is moving to smaller offices. People are going to be hot desking and Ellison is talking about flexible working,” she stops for a moment, bites her lip. “I could do a lot of work from home, drive in two or three times a week or whenever I need to.”

 

“You wanna do that?”

 

She nods again, leans into his hand as his nails scrape the skin between her shoulder blades.

 

“I want a home Frank. A place big enough for the dogs. Not a series of shitty apartments that never get any better.”

 

He snorts, looks around in the gloom.

 

“What? This palace?”

 

She chuckles. “Yeah. This palace that costs more than a mortgage.”

 

He leans forward, brushes her lips with his.

 

“Okay.”

 

“Okay? Just like that?”

 

“Just like that.”

 

“Frank, I…”

 

“No,” he says. “You want it, it's yours.”

 

And it is.

 

~~~

 

_Somewhere in the church a baby starts to cry, little hiccupping sobs that echo off the walls._

 

_He doesn't miss the way Karen's shoulders hitch, but he thinks he might be the only one._

 

~~~

 

The house is smaller than the one he had with Maria, but Karen's insistent about an extra bedroom, a yard. She says the bedroom is for guests, the yard for the dogs but they don't have guests and there's a park nearby for the dogs. He's not sure she knows what she's doing but he lets it be.

 

It's a bit of a fixer-upper but that gives him something to do; a way to feel useful. Also, he likes the way she looks at him when he's shirtless and sweaty from a day's hard labour.

 

There's a study that she can work from and a big fireplace in the lounge. They make love in front of it the first night they move in. She's sitting in his lap, rising up in front of him like an angel, bearing down hard and clenching him tightly inside her. And when he comes, she holds him, fingernails scraping across his skin as she presses kisses into his neck.

 

 _This is forever_ , she whispers and he believes her.

 

He believes her.

 

~~~

 

_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Don't you know how sorry I am? How much is enough? How long is forever?_

 

~~~

 

She gets better.

 

 _They_ get better.

 

Something about being away from Hell’s Kitchen and in the suburbs changes her. She works harder than she's ever done before but she strikes a balance too. They walk the dogs in the park, they take long weekends and drive out of state and spend time in the mountains. They even go on a double date with the Liebermans and it's not weird. Well, maybe David is a bit weird but that’s to be expected. Karen gets on with Sarah though and later when she meets Leo they become fast friends too.

 

He's never lonely. And neither is she.

 

Sometimes though… sometimes he has to remind himself that better isn't the same as good. It isn't the same as “well”. She still carries some of that sorrow in her heart. She still carries some of that rage in her bones.

 

They don't try for a baby again - it's not like they tried the first time either - but there's something about officially committing to the act of making a child that makes it too real.

 

And yet… and yet on some level he knows they're both hoping. On some level they're not being as careful as people who don't want to be pregnant should be.

 

It gives nothing but it takes away the expectation. It's okay as far as a balance goes and they're content to let it be.

 

One weekend they go to Vermont and stay in a cottage on the edge of a lake with no one around for miles. She wears a pastel pink string bikini that ties at her hips and he knows it wouldn’t take much more than a tug to lose it in the water.

 

She knows it too, and when eventually he wades into the waves and throws her over his shoulder, carries her into the bedroom like some kind of caveman conquering his bride, she shrieks with laughter. And so does he.

 

And then he’s kissing her and touching her, discarding that ridiculous excuse for swimwear on the floor and he’s about to lose himself in her when she pulls back, tells him to stop.

 

“I forgot my pills,” she says. “I left them in the bathroom at home.”

 

He frowns, puts a hand on her face, presses his lips to hers.

 

“Got something in my bag,” he says.

 

But as he moves to sit up, she wraps her legs tight and hard around his waist.

 

“No. Don’t,” and then her mouth is on his and her voice is a whisper. “Please don’t.”

 

By the start of summer their child would have been six months old.

 

~~~

 

_The priest makes a joke about how rain on your wedding day is a sign of fertility. Like most priests he's full of shit. The lightning, the thunderclouds, the way the windows shudder against the onslaught. No one could take this as anything but an omen._

 

_He has three dead children, but she has one and it doesn't get any easier._

 

~~~

 

It's nearing the anniversary of the day his family died. He gets irritable, morose. The nightmares - usually formless and dark and easily forgotten - become crystal clear and grotesquely vivid and they stay with him well into the day. They’re always the same. He’s at the carousel, thinking about what a lucky bastard he is that all this is his; telling himself that the strange feeling of dread building in his bones is nothing but some lingering remnant of something he can’t quite remember and doesn’t want to. And then he’ll hear the sound of steel against leather, the click of a hammer. He’ll see Lisa’s beautiful little face and the curve of Maria’s shoulder ... Junior’s dark head bobbing up and down on some dumbass painted pony with purple feathers in its mane. And then he’s shouting and running to them, and even though his legs feel like lead, he’ll almost make it. _Almost_. Every goddamn time.

He loses them a hundred times before it’s over.

The first night he wakes up to the sound of his own screams. Karen is looming over him in the darkness and begging him to come back to her, her hands on his brow, framing his face. For a wild, insane moment he's angry at her for taking it away, enraged that she woke him up before he got a chance to save them.

He looks at her like she's a stranger and then when she says his name he collapses sobbing into her arms.

The nights that follow don’t get any better.

 

~~~

 

_“Does anyone know of any reason this man and woman should not be joined together? Let them speak now or forever hold their peace.”_

 

_He looks around expectantly, waiting for someone to say something._

 

_It only occurs to him after the moment has passed that that person was him._

 

~~~

 

She’s so good to him. She’s so present and understanding and he hates himself for taking her on this journey with him. She deserves better. She deserves so much more than he can give her. He tells her this and she pulls him close and begs him to let her be there for him, promises him he doesn’t need to be alone. It’s easier when they’re not alone. Doesn’t he remember? They got one another through that. They can get through this too.

 

She promises him and he believes her.

 

But the nightmares get worse. By the time the actual anniversary arrives he’s shaking from exhaustion, his body tired and weak and his mind slowly spiralling out of control. She’s been begging him to talk to Claire or Curtis, begging him to let her give him something for it but he won’t. He tells her he needs to feel it, he needs to suffer. He needs to remember so that he never lets it happen again.

 

She holds him in their bed and rocks him, whispers that he doesn’t need to do that, that he can forgive himself and he can rest.

 

He can’t do any of these things. Not even for her.

 

~~~

 

She stays home with him on the day and even though it feels like someone is twisting a knife through his heart, she brings a kind of calmness that takes the edge off. She lets him fall apart, she lets him come to her to put him back together. It feels like it happens a thousand times during the day and every time she’s exactly what he needs her to be.

 

In the afternoon she drives him to their graves. She offers to wait for him, tells him to take as long as he needs, but he wants her to come with him and she does.

 

He falls apart again and she holds him, cradles his head on her shoulder and lets him cry out his love for a woman that isn’t her and a family that isn’t theirs. She’s a gift. She’s a wonderful terrible gift that he doesn’t deserve and never will.

 

Afterwards she takes him home, helps him into bed, presses kisses into his cheeks and tells him that he can rest now. She’ll do the heavy lifting and it’s okay that he’s not okay.

 

He touches her face, runs a thumb over her lips.

 

“I want you to be happy,” he says.

 

She kisses his brow.

 

“I am.”

 

“Why do you stay?” he asks.

 

“Because I love you even when it gets bad.”

 

~~~

 

“On the day she died Maria asked me where home was,” he lies on his back with his arm around her shoulders. “She said I was leaving parts of me over there in Afghanistan, in the war, and she wanted to know where I wanted to be.”

 

“What did you say?”

 

He kisses her temple. She’s soft and she smells like those white roses he bought her once that he’s now planted in the garden.

 

“I told her that home was with her.”

 

She puts a hand on his belly. “Where is home now?”

 

“With you.”

 

~~~

 

_The priest wants to bless the rings. He expects Foggy to make a show out of not being able to find them, clap his hands on his pockets, shake his head with a sheepish look on his face. But he doesn’t._

 

_He pulls them out of his pocket. He hands them over._

 

_They get blessed._

 

~~~

 

A few weeks later and he’s stopped measuring time by the highs of his rage and the lows of his emptiness. The world has colour and purpose again and Karen shines brightly like a little flame he can use to guide him home.

 

He takes her out and romances her in a way he’s neglected to do before. He buys her gifts and they dance under the stars. At night they lie in their bed and he traces the lines of her with his fingertips - the curve of her lips, the arch of her neck, the swell of her breasts. When she comes, it’s hard and fast like a gunshot but the smile on her face is soft and lazy.

 

She’s happy she tells him. He makes her so happy.

 

And he believes her.

 

~~~

 

_Sleigh bells became wedding bells and the wedding bells sound like a requiem._

 

~~~

 

He wants to take her back to Vermont, back to cabin by the lake. It’ll be good for them, it’ll be good for Atlas too who’s growing old and arthritic.

 

He comes home to tell her he’s booked, they can leave on Thursday and she better not pack anything other than that goddamn bikini of hers. But he can’t find her. For one wild moment he thinks he’s lost her again, that something has happened and he’s going to get a phone call from someone wanting his head in exchange for hers. He’d give it. No questions asked.

 

But when he fights down the panic and he calls out to her, he hears water running and then the door to the bathroom opening. She’s been crying, her eyes bloodshot and tears tracking her cheeks and he doesn’t ask, he just goes to her and holds her tight, lets her cling to him and sob into his shirt.

 

Behind her, sitting on the white ceramic counter, is a newly opened box of tampons.

 

~~~

 

Later, when he brings her a cup of herbal tea, she apologises for being silly and he tells her to stop. She doesn’t need to. She never needs to. He’s been so caught up in himself that for a moment he pushed this particular tragedy away and he should never have done that. He should have never let it get away from him.

 

“It’s not the same Frank,” she says. “Losing your living children isn’t the same as this.”

 

He takes her hand in his, squeezes her fingers and brings them to his lips.

 

“No,” he says. “No it’s not, but it ain’t a competition.”

 

~~~

 

They don’t go back to Vermont. It doesn’t seem right for some reason even though he’s hard pressed to define why. But later he wishes they had. Later he’d give anything to change it.

 

Instead they stay home and again, she seems better. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t see the flashes of rage she tries so hard to hide, nor that he misses the desperation in her when they make love. And yet they’re still not officially trying and he wonders if that’s because this is more about grieving for the one they lost than trying for another.

 

She even tells him once that she doesn't know if she wants a child yet, but at the same time she does. She says it frustrates her because she’s always prized being in control of her own life and now that she is, all she wants is someone else to make this decision for her.

 

_Does he understand? Does he get it?_

 

He says he thinks he does but he doesn't have the answers. All he can do is love her. All he can do is give her everything she wants, even if she doesn’t know what that is.

 

~~~

 

_He’s seen Murdock cry, he’s seen him retreat into his righteousness, he’s seen him wrestle with himself. The night Karen was taken he saw fear and anger. He saw disappointment and resentment. But he’s never seen Murdock happy. He’s never seen him at peace._

 

_Until now._

 

_Frank was at peace once too._

 

~~~

 

It’s a Thursday afternoon when it all falls apart. It’s hot and the sky is a beautiful shade of blue. There are children playing in the parks and vendors selling melting ice-creams. The hustle and bustle of Hell’s Kitchen feels strangely quaint and companionable instead of frustrating and bitter.

 

He takes the dogs in the back of the truck to fetch Karen from work and they wag their tails when they see her - Rosie barking happily and Atlas making grunting sounds which they’ve come to understand means he’s content with the world and everything in it.

 

When Karen gets into the front seat, he kisses her long and hard and runs a hand up her bare thigh. She’s wearing a short teal sundress and he asks her, as he’s pressing his lips to her neck, if she wants to cause an incident at the paper, if anyone called HR and laid a formal complaint. She tells him no one noticed except for one publisher who grins at her all the time and once tried to make a move by offering to do her photocopying for her.

 

He laughs, draws her in for another kiss and for a moment he considers just taking her home to their bed. They can spend the afternoon naked and drenched in sunshine, making love or making babies or whatever the hell it is both of them are so afraid to say they want.

 

But he can’t because he has plans. Big ones. Better ones. He has a picnic basket in the back of his truck. He also has an oval sapphire ring in his pocket. It’ll match her eyes even if it will never outshine them.

 

And yes, he knows - he fucking _knows_ \- it's crazy. He fucking knows he's tempting fate just by thinking this. But then he looks at her and there's nothing that doesn't seem worth the risk.

 

So they drive out of Hell’s Kitchen to the outskirts of the city where he once kissed her and made her a promise under a scarlet oak; when her lips tasted like cinnamon and sugar and the snow fell in her hair.

 

He takes her hand, leads her back to that oak. It’s tall and solid and as good a place as any to make a promise like this.

 

She sits on the picnic blanket with the dogs and he watches how the sunlight shines through the leaves and makes dappled patterns on her skin.

 

It hurts to look at her. It always has.

 

_My girl, my precious precious girl. You’re everything. You’re my whole life. My whole heart._

 

~~~

 

_He never asks the question of how it all went wrong. He knows, he can pinpoint the second._

 

~~~

 

She lies with her head in his lap.

 

Her hair is like spun gold and it feels like silk between his fingers.

 

He has a ring in his pocket.

 

She will say yes.

 

She said forever.

 

She lies with her head in his lap and he is at peace.

 

And then there’s a man. There’s a man because it’s always a man. It’s always a man tearing them apart. It’s always a man trying to take her away. Trying to hurt them.

 

She feels him tense up under her and slowly, almost lazily, she turns her head to look at him. He thinks he’ll always remember that moment, the way her hair tumbled through his fingers, the shift in her shoulders and how her profile came into view, her eyes big and blue and questioning.

 

She asks if he’s alright and her voice is light, airy, only the smallest hint of concern.

 

But he’s not alright. He’s not alright at all. Because across the park, across the lot which once felt like it could be a sacred space for them he can see him. _Him_. The one that took it all away, that took her away and took their child away. The one that hurt her and scared her and showed him that no matter how he tries he always loses in the end.

 

He. Always. Loses.

 

She sits up, follows his gaze. Her gasp tells him that she knows it’s Deacon, that despite the limp, the walking stick and the paralysed arm that swings uselessly at his side, she recognises the man who hurt her.

 

And then she pulls the world out from under him.

 

Gentle hand on his arm. “Frank. Frank no please. Don’t.”

 

 _Don’t_.

 

But he does.

 

He does.

 

~~~

 

He calls David, makes him dig up an address. He can hear the trepidation in his voice, the questioning, and he tells David to stop being an asshole and give him what he needs.

 

And then he goes and he takes a sledge hammer with him and he uses it on Deacon in much the same way he once used it to bring down the walls at the construction site where his life went to shit before magically fixing itself.

 

He's covered in gore and all he can see is Karen’s bruised face and the bloody dressings that once were his child.

 

And he knows on some level this isn't right. No matter how good it feels, no matter how he's shaking and telling himself he's doing it for her, this isn't what she would have wanted. She told him not to. She begged. He doesn’t understand it but she did.

 

But he's done. He's so done. This is over now once and for all and he never ever needs to think about it again and neither does she. They can finally get past this and move on.

 

Except they can't.

 

When he looks up she's right in front of him and her eyes are hard as diamonds.

 

~~~

 

_Why?_

 

She keeps asking him why. Her and Red standing there like disapproving parents as they watch the blood drip down his hands and make those dead stars on the floor again.

 

He doesn't know how they found him, really doesn't know how she got Red involved but none of that seems to matter right now. None of it matters except her questions.

 

_Why? Why did he have to kill him? Why couldn’t he just let it go? He was old and sick. He was so fucked up from the last time Frank got near him he would have never been able to hurt anyone again. Why couldn't he just let it be?_

 

And then Red. Always fucking Red. Red and his goddamn choir boy goodness. And he’s insisting that Deacon was no threat. That in exchange for sparing his life, in exchange for not blowing his brains out like Frank told him to, he managed to exact a promise. He’d disappear. He’d go away. His burns and the fact that Frank had crippled him was punishment enough. He’d never walk unaided, he’d live in constant pain, his skin swollen and infected from the fire, his body unstable and untrustworthy.

 

_Come on Frank, that kind of punishment, it’s almost biblical._

 

 _Why?_ She asks. _Why did you need more?_

 

And that’s when he explodes. That’s when he can’t take anymore of the questions and the judgment.

 

For the first time she makes him feel alone.

 

“You’re asking why?” and his voice is red with rage, the blood in his mouth flying out with his saliva like a red rain. “You’re actually asking me why.”

 

“Frank…”

 

“He took my child Karen. Our child. He killed her.”

 

He’s not surprised to see Murdock flinch next to her.

 

“It was my job to keep you safe. It was my job to keep her safe and I didn’t. I let it happen again, I let it…” and he can hear his voice has taken on that quality he can’t control, that faint hysteria which he tries to lock away but can’t when he’s overcome.

 

“No Frank, no. You didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

 

“Don’t matter…”

 

“It does.”

 

“She would have been nine months old. You know what they do at nine months? You know you need to babyproof by then, they can pull themselves up on things, they can play games and they know your voice…

 

“You know what they do at 12 months? They walk Karen. They walk and they fall down and then they walk again. They say words. She could have been calling you ‘mama’.

 

“And then there would have been bedtime stories and pillow forts and enough fucking children's tv to make you go out of your head. And she'd have outgrown the clothes you would have only bought a month ago and…”

 

“Stop it! Jesus Christ stop it Frank!”

 

It’s like she’s slapped him and he thinks it may have been better if she had. It may have hurt them both less. But he does stop. He does.

 

He takes a breath, loud and ragged, tries to focus on her, tries to forget that Red is here too.

 

He fails. He fails at everything.

 

And then she speaks. She speaks and she breaks his heart.

 

“You think I don’t know? You think I don’t see her? You think I don’t wonder what she would have been like? That I don’t have a name for her? You think I don’t remember what this piece of shit took from me. From you,” She looks down at Deacon’s body, spits on it. “Do you think I didn't think about killing him? Do you think I didn't dream about it? And not just for her. Not just for our baby, but for me. You don't think I didn't imagine doing this to him? Taking back what he stole from me? Getting vengeance for how he hurt me? How he hurt us?”

 

It feels like a revelation but it isn't. He's known it about her all along.

 

She bares her teeth and somewhere behind it he sees the shadow of _that_ smile, something terrible and feral and she gulps it back before it spreads.

 

And he understands. He wishes he didn't but he does.

 

“Karen…”

 

“And now he's taken something else. Now he’s taken the only thing more precious to me than her.”

 

He reels at that and even though he’s the one standing there with a fucking 14 pound sledgehammer, she’s the one grinding him into the dust.

 

Her words, her tears… he’s not supposed to make her cry. He’s not supposed to hurt her. He’s supposed to love her. That’s his job. Love her, protect her. Keep her safe.

 

But all he wants to do is scream. All he wants to do is scream the voices out of his head, scream away his losses and failures. Scream until she runs away too.

 

He tries. He tries so hard.

 

Another deep breath. A deep ragged breath.

 

He doesn’t want to fight her. She’s the last person in the world he wants to fight. And he will lose anyway.

 

For a moment he just looks at her: her tear-stained face, the blood of two dead men - his and Deacon’s - on her clothes. She's beautiful even now but all he sees is disappointment and some kind of horrific fear.

 

And he can’t shout anymore. He can’t.

 

“You haven’t lost me Karen,” he says. “That isn’t something that can happen.”

 

She shakes her head, wipes her eyes and for one split-second he’s back in the woods and he’s dragging Schoonover behind him into a cabin and she’s telling him she’s done. She’s done. He’s dead to her.

 

“You know why I never blamed you for her?” she says. “You know why?”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because it wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault and I knew that even though you knew that you would still blame yourself more than anyone ever could. The world isn’t big enough for your guilt Frank.” She gestures vaguely at the corpse. “It isn’t big enough for this. _I’m_ not big enough for this.”

 

He closes his eyes, waits for the rage and the hurt to recede but neither of them do.

 

 _I love all of you. Even that bit. Even the bad parts_.

 

She’s a liar.

 

“Damnit Karen,” he says. “You never asked me to stop.”

 

It's feeble, it’s so so feeble.

 

She knows it too. “You promised anyway. You did.”

 

She's right. He did.

 

He's a liar too. He’s a liar and he breaks promises. So many promises.

 

He drops the sledgehammer and it hits the ground with a loud thunk and for a few long seconds he just watches her.

 

There’s nothing more to say. Nothing that will fix it. It runs too hot and too deep, much like her rage. Much like his.

 

“Go Karen,” he says softly. “Go and I’ll sort this out. I'll see you at home.”

 

He thinks she’ll object, she’ll insist on staying and fixing this thing between them once and for all, but she doesn’t.

 

She looks at Deacon and then at him.

 

“You are home Frank,” she says.

 

She turns on her heel and walks away, Murdock trailing after her like a lost puppy.

 

~~~

 

_Even now, dressed all in white with her hair shining in the candlelight and her skin smooth like porcelain, she's deadly. She might be able to hide it and she might be able to pretend she isn’t. But she is. She always has been._

 

_It’s the part of her that's afraid of how much of herself she sees in his bloodlust.The part of her that hungered for Deacon to die almost as much as he did._

 

_It's terrifying. And he doesn't have to wonder why what they are together scares her._

 

~~~

 

She’s in bed when he gets back, lying on her side, but not asleep. He slides the ring into the back of his draw and then he goes to her presses a kiss to her forehead, and whispers that he loves her and he’s sorry. Because he is. He might not be sorry for putting down that murdering piece of shit but he’s sorry for hurting her, for breaking his promises.

 

He’s sorry for making her cry.

 

He climbs in beside her, adjusts the pillow and stares at the back of her head, her hair long and loose and glinting like silver fire in the moonlight.

 

_Will you stay?_

 

For the first time she doesn't answer him.

 

That night she sleeps with her back to him.

 

~~~

 

He asks her one question the next morning. One and only one.

 

“What did you name her?”

 

Her eyes are still bloodshot and he doesn’t think she slept much more than he did.

 

“Abigail,” she says softly. “It means ‘father’s joy’.”

 

~~~

 

When she doesn’t come home that night he’s not surprised. He calls Foggy to make sure she’s safe and he wonders if he’s imagining the sympathy in his voice.

 

“She’s here,” he says. “She needs time.”

 

Time he has. Time he can give her. But he also knows that’s not where this is going. That’s not where this ends.

 

~~~

 

He’s right.

 

A weekend turns into a week, then ten days, then a fortnight.

 

Atlas is maudlin and Rosie is frantic, and eventually all he can do is make the call he’s been dreading and tell Foggy to let Karen know he’s moving out so she can move back in; that he doesn’t want to keep her out of her home, this place she’s made her own. He’s not going to take that from her too. He’s taken enough already.

 

He asks Foggy to ask her what she wants to do about the dogs, if he should take them or if she wants to keep them. He can hear Foggy covering the receiver and his muffled voice and then her equally muffled reply.

 

A few seconds later and he’s back on the line.

 

“She wants them both.”

 

Yeah, he figured as much. It makes sense.

 

He’ll be out by morning. It’s all hers. Foggy doesn’t say anything to that but he has the distinct impression that he’s surprised him again, that he’s becoming less and less of a “psycho murderer” by the second.

 

~~~

 

He’s true to his word. The next morning he says goodbye to Atlas and Rosie, and steps out of the house and into the rain.

 

David offers to let him stay with them but he knows that would be the fuck up to end all fuck ups so he finds a cheap motel - one that charges by the hour - and he waits for something to happen. For something to change. And then it does.

 

A single text message from her. Two simple words.

 

“Thank you”

 

Nothing else.

 

He sits on the bed and contemplates his next move for a long time before realising he only has one. He pulls his razor out of his toiletry bag and goes to the mirror, shaves off his beard and then his hair.

 

Then he goes out and buys a chest piece and a tin of white paint.

 

She was always the dividing line. Always.

 

~~~

 

_She makes a beautiful bride. If only she was his._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, thank you all so much for the comments and kudos. I really appreciate it. I've added some thoughts at the end if you guys are interested.

He hunts. He takes to the streets and he hunts bad men. Rapists, abusers, flesh traffickers. He hunts them all and he shows no mercy. There's no quarter to be given, no pleas to be answered.

 

He puts them down and sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's over quickly. But other times he draws it out. Savours it. It's bones breaking and blood flowing, flesh coming away from muscle and the sound of their screams is like music.

 

He realises the problem with this. No, not the problem with what he’s doing - he's made his peace with that - but rather the fact that Karen’s become a conscience to him, that somehow it's her and what he had with her that kept this from happening earlier.

 

She'd never take that on though. Her guilt doesn't run that deep and on some level he realises there's a part of her that understands this need in him even if she can't truly approve it. One less child molester isn't the end of the world. A few dead gangsters is just another Wednesday in Hell’s Kitchen.

 

So he works. He works hard. He’s pretty sure that he brings the overall crime rate in the city down but that only counts if they don't see what he does as a crime. It's not a winnable situation but he doesn't much care.

 

He moves further afield too. He gets word of cartels down in Texas and paedophile rings in Oregon; some old geezer in Wyoming starting a cult of underage girls.

 

The list is endless. There's always someone to punish.

 

He spends a lot of time away from the city, more than he’d like. Even though there's nothing in Hell’s Kitchen for him, he misses it and when he's away he longs to get back. He knows it's because she's there. He knows it's because he wants to check on her, because he still feels responsible for her and like it's his job to protect her.

 

It feels like home. Even if home is a little broken right now. Even if the roof is caving in and the water’s turned off and there's mice in the walls.

 

Even then it's home.

 

~~~

 

He spends three weeks in Omaha, Nebraska. It's the longest he's been away in one stint and by the time he gets home he's antsy and worried even if he’s not sure why.

 

He finds out soon enough though.

 

There’s dozens of messages from Karen and before he can listen to any of them, she calls again.

 

He stares at her picture on his phone for a long time before he answers. He has no idea what it's about. He has no idea why she would call. He doesn’t even try to hope for the best. He just expects the worst.

 

And he gets it.

 

It’s Atlas. He’s sick. He’s been to the vet and they’ve had to run tests and…

 

She trails off.

 

He has a split second to find something to cling to. To hope. And stupidly, he does.

 

Does he need surgery? Does she need money? He has money. He can transfer it or if she thinks it would be easier he can drop it off.

 

But she’s crying way too hard for this to be about money and she’s hushing him and he can hear her voice becoming strained and weak.

 

No, no, no. It’s not money. She has money. It’s just all the money in the world isn’t going to fix this problem.

 

“He’s dying Frank,” she whispers. “There’s nothing they can do. There’s nothing anybody could have done.”

 

He hates those words. He hates them because they’re true. He hates them more when they aren’t.

 

“When?” he asks and for a long moment she’s silent.

 

“Tomorrow,” and her voice is choked again. “They’ve given me medicine to make him comfortable for tonight, but he can’t…”

 

“You shoulda told me sooner,” he says.

 

“I tried. You were gone.”

 

It’s true. He was. He still is.

 

Another long stretched silence and then she speaks again. “I was wondering if you’d like to come and say goodbye? Maybe come with me tomorrow too?”

 

Yes, yes of course. She doesn’t need to do this on her own. They were always better when they grieved together anyway.

 

“Can I come round now?” he asks and she says yes and he can picture her bobbing her head on the other end of the line.

 

He slips his phone back into his jeans and looks around. He still has blood on his hands from the last man he killed and he wonders if that even matters. But it does and he washes up before he heads out to her.

 

~~~

 

She hugs him when he arrives and for a moment it feels like everything is going to be okay. She’s warm and soft and she fits against him like she always has. But then she pulls away a little too sharply, a little too quickly and looks away. Even so, seeing her feels like a knife to the heart and for a second he can’t breathe. He can't even think.

 

He's lost so much. _They've_ lost so much and they just carry on losing.

 

Atlas is in the living room asleep in his dog bed, Rosie tucked up under his chin. He looks quiet, peaceful even, his gentle doggy snores grinding away in the background. And when Frank lays a hand on his head he opens his his eyes and thumps his tail, pink tongue darting out to lick his fingers.

 

He doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know how to deal with this new tragedy - the one he knows is coming but can't even begin to prepare for.

 

“Hey buddy,” he says softly. “Hey. You been making your mom worry?”

 

Atlas thumps his tail again, lies back down.

 

“Yeah,” he says and his voice cracks. “Yeah you ain't feeling too good?”

 

He touches the grey around Atlas’ muzzle, leans his forehead against his brow. He's crying but he doesn't care and even though he tells himself they gave Atlas the best few years he could have had, it feels like an empty platitude. He didn’t deserve a few good years, he deserved an entire good life. A life away from hunger and fear and pain.

 

He lets out a sob and that's when he feels her hand on his shoulder and he reaches up, takes her fingers in his, turns his head to kiss them.

 

And then she's holding him again and this time she doesn't pull away while they cry into each others shoulders. He strokes her hair, kisses her temple, leans into her as much as she does him.

 

 _Will you stay,_ she asks. _Just for tonight. Will you stay?_

 

Of course he will. Of course. He'd cut his arms off if she asked. He’d set himself on fire.

 

But he doesn't need to do any of that. All he needs to do is stay.

 

~~~

 

They pull out the couch and it doesn’t even feel a little bit awkward when they lie on it next to each other and listen to Atlas snore. He doesn't want to admit it but he thinks both of them are waiting for the snores to stop, for something to take him peacefully tonight instead of forcing them to make the decision they have to make tomorrow.

 

But the snores don't stop and when he feels her shaking he pulls her against him, kisses her hair and then her cheeks, her tears, and for the first time in months he glimpses something close to peace.

 

They don't speak but they watch each other, her eyes bright and brilliant in the darkness, her body warm and soft and familiar against his. He touches her and she touches him - small touches that simultaneously mean nothing and everything.

 

He doesn't want the night to end. He doesn't want morning and everything the day is going to bring with it to come. But when he wakes up with Karen’s back to his belly and Atlas licking their entwined hands and whining softly - his big brown eyes dull and pleading - he knows it's time.

 

He gets to lose something else he loves.

 

~~~

 

It's over quickly. They stay with him right to the end, Karen cradling his face and telling him he's a good boy as they put the needle into him.

 

He _is_ a good boy. He's such a very good boy and they love him so much.

 

He wags his tail at them one last time before he goes.

 

Afterwards Frank holds her for a long time in the vet's office and she holds him too. He thinks he keeps her standing as much as she does him.

 

He takes her out for coffee and holds her hand across the table and for a long time they don't speak.

 

Instead he watches the people, the children, the cars going past. He thinks about their lives and then he thinks about his. He wonders how many of them see the world in the same hollow monochrome he does lately. If life feels stale and empty and like there's too much air and too little at the same time.

 

He only realises he's crying when she reaches across the table and dabs at his cheeks with a tissue.

 

“I miss you,” he says when she's done.

 

“I miss you too.”

 

It's the truth. It changes precisely nothing.

 

~~~

 

_Claire notices him first, but there isn’t much Nurse Temple misses. She suddenly goes still, her shoulders tensing and then slowly turns to look up into the darkened gallery where he stands. She looks right at him and he expects to see rage or disappointment on her face. All he sees is pain._

 

~~~

 

It's not the start of a reunion. It's not their way back to each other. He finds he has hope though, and that's something he didn't have before.

 

He still punishes. It’s probably the only thing that keeps him sane. It’s not a substitute for being with her but it eases the ache in his heart if only for a few searing seconds before the pain and the loss ebbs back in.

 

But he sees her too and that makes a difference. She’s a little oasis in a sea of blood and violence. She gives him a moment to breathe and catch up, to rest. It’s always worse when she’s gone though. The rage runs hotter and the emptiness inside him expands outwards until he thinks he’s going to explode and there’ll be nothing but a void where Frank Castle once was.

 

He wonders if that hasn’t happened already.

 

They meet a few times a month. They tell themselves it’s to discuss practical things like the house and the bills, but they never get any further or make any decisions. Things stay exactly as they are even though he can sense her need for resolution.

 

He moves into a shitty apartment. His neighbour is a aging Puerto Rican woman called Penny who looks after her two grandchildren and a very angry corgi mix called Tony.

 

He helps her out and fixes her gas, rewires her TV so it stops sparking and even lays down a new tiled floor in her kitchen. In return she always sets an extra plate for him and her cooking is wonderful.

 

She tells him he needs a wife and he tells her he messed that up, broke it so badly he can't fix it.

 

She's dubious as she turns to look at her gas meter and her floor, the TV in the living room which is on even though the kids are supposed to be doing their homework.

 

“You can fix anything Mr Castle. Why not that?”

 

He doesn't know how to answer so he makes a joke about how he'd miss her cooking if he got a wife.

 

He doesn't fool her for a second.

 

~~~

 

_I’ll always love you, right to the end. As long as you’re still breathing there’s no one else for me._

 

~~~

 

He checks on her every night. Before he left he installed a security system that not even he could get past. And he knows she knows how to use her .38. Still though, he finds he can't sleep unless he's checked on her, until he drives past and sees she's home, the light from the study burning brightly as she proves to Ellison she's worth every penny of her no longer pitiful wage. She's back to working in the office five days a week too and he doesn't know how to feel about that.

 

One night he sees her standing in the yard with Rosie, taking her out one last time before bed. He waves to her and she waves back and for a millisecond he considers getting out of the truck and going to her. But then she picks Rosie up and goes inside and, when the door shuts behind her, he knows she's not ready for anything more than they have.

 

~~~

 

She tells him the next time she sees him that he doesn't need to check on her. She's safe. He made sure of that.

 

He asks her to indulge him and she looks at him for a long time, eyes an icy blue and her gaze flaying him right to the bone, before she nods.

 

She gets it. He knows she does. What they had doesn't disappear just because of time and distance. He can't change who he is either. So she tells him it's okay. He can keep her safe. If it helps him to find some semblance of peace in his life, he can keep her safe.

 

So he does. He watches that little light burning, he watches the house go dark as she turns in for the night. He watches her.

 

There are other nights though. Nights when he sees the whole house lit up and Foggy or Claire's car outside, sometimes others he doesn't recognise, sometimes all of them together.

 

He's glad she has friends, he’s glad she has support. But it just drives home how lonely he is. How he has none of these things.

 

He has himself and he has The Punisher.  

 

He lets the blood run free and fresh in the streets and then he goes home and washes it off his hands and he knows nothing he ever does will be a substitute for her touch.

 

~~~

 

_The priest tries to lighten the mood. He whispers to Karen that this is the scary part._

 

_He doesn’t realise how true it is._

 

~~~

 

She pulls his heart out of his chest and stamps on it. Sets it on fire and watches as he writhes on the ground and dies at her feet.

 

It’s late at night and she's standing on their porch, surrounded by snow and fairy lights, a big wreath on their front door.

 

It's Christmas again and if anything she looks more beautiful than she did this time last year when she tasted like mulled wine and cinnamon while he promised her forever under a scarlet oak.

 

That was a perfect moment though. This is not.

 

She's bundled up in a coat that isn't hers and there's snow in her hair. She looks like an angel. But her hands are framing Murdock’s face and he's drawing her close. So very close. And then she's stepping into the circle of his arms, pressing her body against his as his mouth finds hers.

 

For his part Murdock kisses her like a drowning man fighting for his last breath of air. He's desperate and needy, his hands everywhere like he needs to find a way to claim every part of her all at once.

 

Frank knows what it is to need her like that. To kiss her like that.

 

_He knows._

 

There's a moment he doesn't feel anything at all. There's just nothingness, a strange sensation that his body and mind isn't his, that he can't possibly comprehend what this new piece of information is supposed to do to him. He feels like he’s made of something unnatural and synthetic.

 

Something dead.

 

He wonders if this means he got over her while he wasn't paying attention. If somehow he extracted her from his system without even trying. Even as he's thinking it he knows it isn't true.

 

There's nothing and then there's what he can only describe as a gunshot. It hits him point blank in the chest, an excruciating burst of bullets that cripples him immediately and then shoots along his bones to shred him from the inside out.

 

He gasps, doubles over and grabs the steering wheel, knuckles turning white as he tries to control his breathing.

 

It does precisely nothing to help.

 

He can taste ash in his mouth, dry and sharp, and he thinks he might throw up. His skin feels like fire.

 

He's not sure how long he stays there. How long he fights his most basic urges, how long it takes to talk himself down, but when he looks up they're both gone and the house is dark and he doesn't know if Murdock is inside or out.

 

He forces himself to focus long enough to drive home.

 

He lies down in his cold bed and throws himself willingly into the nightmares.

 

~~~

 

_Did you forget us? How could you forget?_

 

~~~

 

She doesn't try to hide it the next time he sees her.

 

They sit across from each other in some hole-in-the-wall cafe. He's on his fourth coffee and his hands are shaking but it has nothing to do with the caffeine.

 

“You saw, didn't you?” she says.

 

He doesn't have the energy or the will to play games and ask what she means, so he just nods.

 

“I didn't know you were there,” she says. “I'm not that cruel.”

 

He wants to laugh at that, bark out something guttural and ugly. Because she is. She _is_ that fucking cruel.

 

“Didn’t take long,” he says.

 

“No Frank. Matt and I … It's not anything,” she says.

 

He does laugh now. A hard dry sound that’s more animal than human.

 

“So we’re doing this then?” he says.

 

“Doing what?”

 

He shakes his head, take a gulp of his coffee and then looks her straight in the eye.

 

“Lying.”

 

For a second she seems almost offended but then she pushes her hair out of her face and stares back at him.

 

“I'm not lying.”

 

And he can't help it. He can't. He swore he'd never do this but he does.

 

“Is that right?”

 

“Yes Frank. That's right.”

 

“Oh,” He says, voice full of mock surprise. “I guess that's all okay then.”

 

He sounds like a child. He knows he does, but he can't help it.

 

“Come on Frank,” she says.

 

“Does Murdock know that? That it's “not anything”? Is he good with that?” he stops and she looks away.

 

“It's not like that.”

 

“No?”

 

“No.”

 

He shakes his head again, rolls his eyes.

 

“So Murdock, who’s been in love with you for longer than any of us can remember, is okay with this? This…” he gestures dismissively at her. “... thing that doesn't mean anything. He loves you so much that he’ll take you any way he can have you?”

 

She puts a hand to her brow, closes her eyes and sighs.

 

“Frank…”

 

“No really, I want to know. How does he feel about this?”

 

“Matt’s difficult. He’s always been... idealistic…” she trails off and sips her coffee and looks out the window.

 

He watches her for a moment before he speaks. “He doesn't know, does he? He thinks this is the real deal. He thinks you love him.”

 

She looks up guiltily.

 

“I haven't lied to him.”

 

_Oh but you have. Whether you think you have or not, you have._

 

And then he says the thing he knows he shouldn’t. “Like you never lied to me either?”

 

It's a terrible thing to say. He knows it is the second it's out of his mouth, the second he hears the words. It's cruel and laced with hypocrisy. With poison.

 

But he wants to hurt her. Underneath how much he loves her - how much he needs her and adores her - he wants her to feel just an iota of what she's doing to him, of the way it feels like she's cutting him with a rusty knife, rubbing salt in his wounds.

 

Her eyes flash and her mouth hardens into a cruel line.

 

“That's not fair Frank. I never lied to you.”

 

No it's not fucking fair. None of this is fucking fair. Not one second of his life has been fair since Maria’s brains blew out of her head. Not one second of his life has been fair since he put his children in the ground.

 

Since Karen Page lied when she said she'd stay forever.

 

Since he did the same damn thing.

 

“Yeah, I got that,” he says. “Fairness is something I see a lot of.”

 

She ignores his sarcasm.

 

“I loved you. You know that. I loved you more than I've ever loved anyone in my whole life.”

 

Loved. Loved. Loved. All past tense.

 

“Yeah,” he says draining his coffee and standing, throwing a couple of dollars on the table. “You keep telling yourself that.”

 

The door swings shut behind him, banging hard and closing her and her lies behind him.

 

He’s shaking and his chest feels like it's ready to explode but somehow he manages to walk away, find a quiet place where he can just breathe and try and calm his racing heart.

 

It takes longer than it should, longer than he expects, but eventually he pulls himself together and forces himself to keep moving.

 

He has work to do and criminals to put down. He can't let this stand in the way of that. Not anymore.

 

Two hours later, he drives past the cafe again. She's still sitting there in the window, head in her hands and her shoulders shaking.

 

Hurting her doesn't feel good at all.

 

~~~

 

He stops checking in on her. The last thing he wants to be is _that_ ex.

 

Besides he knows Murdock would lay down his life for her. That isn't even a question. She's safe with him. Maybe safer than she's ever been if Red keeps his nose clean. That's a pretty big if though. And Murdock isn't one to finish a job if the going gets rough.

 

It is what it is though. It's not like he's not used to losing things.

 

So he carries on with his work. He punishes hard and fast but he stays out of the crosshairs, away from that not-so-long arm of the law.

 

No one suspects him and he isn't sure why.

 

It's okay though. Frank Castle isn't alive. He hasn’t been for a long time.

 

~~~

 

_Lightning and thunder, rain beating hard against the window like it's trying to get in._

 

~~~

 

The seasons change again and spring brings cold winds and downpours.

 

Frank doesn't see her and somehow that's worse than the torture of being with her and losing her. His life is empty, meaningless in a way he hasn't felt in a long time. The punishing keeps him going for a while but even that goes through dry spells.

 

Often there's nothing to go out for. There's nothing to go back to either.

 

Some nights he’ll put the picture of his family beside the one he took of Karen. The one when she had snow in her hair and her lips were stained red.

 

He wonders if this is okay, if a decent man would do this. But he loves them all. He loves them all so much. His old family and his new. Except it's not new anymore. He lost that one too.

 

~~~

 

Spring becomes summer and Abigail would have been 18 months old. She would have been walking and talking. She'd have his dark hair but her mother’s eyes.

 

He tries not to think on it too much.

 

He fails.

 

~~~

 

_Fucking David is here. David. Sitting in one of the pews between Sarah and Leo, Zach nowhere in sight. They’re all dressed in their Sunday best, looks like David even cut his damn hair._

 

_He feels more betrayed than he should._

 

~~~

 

It's a hot Sunday when he wakes up to loud banging at his door. At first he thinks it's Penny wanting his help with something. But it isn't. It's someone else entirely.

 

Claire Temple. The look on her face enough to sour milk.

 

He frowns at her for a long time when he opens the door and she rolls her eyes.

 

“You gonna invite me in or do I need to tell you the good news out here?”

 

“The good news? You a Jehovah’s Witness now?”

 

She shakes her head. “No, but you're gonna wish I was.”

 

Frank stands aside, lets her in and closes the door behind her.

 

“How’d you find me?”

 

She gives him a dark look. “You ain't all that Frank.”

 

He purses his lips. He can see why Claire and Karen get on. They're cut from similar cloth.

 

“So what's this good news?” he asks.

 

She cocks her head.

 

“You may wanna sit down.”

 

“Thanks but I'll take my chances.”

 

She shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

 

Claire waits a second before starting and he finds his hands curling into fists, his whole body tensing, bracing for impact.

 

“Matt is going to ask Karen to marry him.”

 

What surprises him is how little of a surprise it is. It's not that it doesn't make him feel sick, it's not that it doesn't cut him to his bones and feel like someone kicked him repeatedly in the balls. It's not like it doesn't make him want to smash and kill things.

 

But it's not unexpected. It's not like he didn't see it coming.

 

He nods. _Okay…_

 

Okay so this is how this feels… like the world is going up in flames and he's too stupid to move because it's not hot enough yet and somehow he thinks getting out the way won’t do much.

 

When he looks back at Claire she's frowning and she looks slightly out of sorts and confused.

 

“You're not gonna say anything?” she says. “You're just gonna stand there like a sack of shit?”

 

He snorts.

 

“What do you want me to say Claire?”

 

She shakes her head. “I don't know. Something. It's not like you don't love her anymore.”

 

“No, it ain't. But that doesn't matter an awful lot if she don't love me.”

 

“That's where you're wrong Frank. That's why I'm here.”

 

“And why's that?”

 

She sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose.

 

“Look Frank, I’m gonna be straight with you and you can do with this information whatever you like…” she stops for a moment before powering through. “You aren’t the kind of man anyone wants her friend shacking up with.”

 

Yeah, well he guesses that isn’t a surprise either.

 

“When I figured out you and Karen were a thing - and let me tell you that wasn’t hard - it freaked me the fuck out. Foggy too. It felt like I was watching my friend make the worst decision of her life. I didn’t know what to think.”

 

She stops for a second and looks around his apartment and he swears that he sees her eyes glistening.

 

“And you do now?”

 

“When I saw you two together, when I saw how you were with her and she was with you, when I saw how happy you both were - you can’t fake that. It’s special. It’s not something many people get. So yeah, I got it. You'd have to be blind to miss it.

 

“And even now, when it’s supposed to be over… the way she talks about you, the things she says…”

 

“She talks about me?”

 

Claire nods.

 

“All the time. All the goddamn time. Every last word she says is like she’s analysing why what she has with Matt doesn’t feel right. It's like she knows it but she also doesn't want to know it and she's looking for any other answer than the most obvious,” she pauses but when he doesn’t say anything she carries on. “I care about her and I care about Matt. And I know Matt loves her and I know he’ll be good to her. In her own way she loves him too … oh don’t look at me like that, you know it’s true.”

 

Frank sighs, shakes his head.

 

“But you more than anyone should know how some people can just tear you apart?”

 

“Don’t…”

 

“No I will. I will. Because you’re not the only one who has to live with it.”

 

He turns around, heads to window and looks out. It’s beautiful outside, bright and hot and the morning traffic is already bad.

 

And then Claire’s behind him and her voice is softer than before. “That’s how Karen feels about you and how you feel about her. That's not something that just goes away.”

 

“So what do you want me to do Claire?” he shifts to look at her. “She doesn’t want me around. She doesn’t want me back. Even if this is just some kind of rebound thing with Murdock that went far too far, I can’t make her want to be with me.”

 

Claire takes a breath, closes her eyes briefly.

 

“You don't have to make her do anything. She already wants to be with you.”

 

“She's got a damn funny way of showing it then.”

 

Claire shakes her head, fixes him with a look that could be exasperation, but it's mostly disappointment.

 

“Look,” she says. “I try not to meddle but every now and then I see something like this and I have to. All I’m trying to do is avoid a lot of heartache for everyone. This is going to destroy all three of you, but I guess you’re another one who likes to suffer.”

 

He doesn't answer. He just looks at her.

 

And then she turns on her heel and she’s gone - and so is everything else.

 

~~~

 

 _“Do you Matthew Murdock take this woman_ _to live together in holy marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?"_

 

_He says I do._

 

_Of course he does._

 

~~~

 

He decides to make one last stand. He's the Punisher, he doesn't look away when his life goes up in flames. He resolves to give it one more chance. To not let the scarlet oak and the ring, the nights they spent loving each other just die like an old dog taking its last breath.

 

And yes, they had that too.

 

So he goes to her, turns up at their - her - house, rings the bell like he never had a key, like this wasn't once his home.

 

She's not expecting company. It takes her a while to get to the door and even then she opens it on its chain a fraction of an inch.

 

When she sees it's him she frowns.

 

“Frank.”

 

“Can I come in? Can we talk?”

 

She looks at him for a moment and then closes the door and he can hear the chain sliding out of its catch and the clicking of Rosie’s feet on the wooden floors. The little dog jumps up on him as he walks inside and he leans down to scratch her behind the ears, kiss her forehead.

 

He misses this. He misses this home so much. He misses her and he misses the dogs and he misses having a place where he belonged, a place that belonged to him. But maybe that’s all he gets to keep - the memories of what it felt like.

 

Then again, maybe not.

 

He straightens his legs, turns to Karen. She’s wearing sweatpants and one of his old Henleys that he left behind. He tries not to read anything into that, tries not to let it mean something. But it does.

 

It always does.

 

“Hey,” he says.

 

“Hey.”

 

There’s not a lot of back and forth. She knows why he’s here and there’s no point in dragging it out, in easing into it. They never were much for easing into things anyway. They threw themselves into a reckless friendship and from that into something deep and unnameable, created a bond that neither of them thought breakable. And the next steps were just so logical, so organic and they were in love before either of them even knew. There’s no reason to pretend they don’t have that. No reason to treat each other with kid gloves.

 

So he asks her straight and to the point why she’s doing this. He says he knows he was wrong, he knows his own culpability in this. He’s not trying to deny that or shift the blame. He’s guilty. He’s guilty as sin and he deserves whatever hell she wants to put him through. And he’s sorry because if he could he would take it back, even though he doesn’t want to.

 

 _But why this?_ He takes her hand in his and looks at the bright red ruby ring she’s wearing. _Why this?_

 

And she sighs, bites her lip and then she speaks.

 

“You were given a chance and then you threw it away. No one gets a second chance like that Frank. No one. But it didn't matter to you. Because _you_ don't matter to you. Even now after all this time and everything that’s happened, you don't care enough about you. You think that as long as I matter it's all okay, but you need to matter too. Because how can I matter - how can any family we have matter - if you don’t?”

 

It's all true. It is. He knows it. Maria knew it.

 

He was wrong. But so is she.

 

“I get that and it's on me,” he says. “None of it explains why you're marrying Murdock though. None of it.”

 

“Because I don't have to worry that I'm losing him all the time. I don't have to worry about how much of him I get to keep.”

 

Her face is red and flushed and she won’t look at him. And he knows why.

 

He moves so that he’s standing in front of her, puts his hands on her shoulders and ducks his head until he can see her properly, waits a few seconds until she focuses on him.

 

“That’s a lie Karen. That’s a lie and you know it.”

 

She doesn’t even try and deny it. The accusation of lying was appalling to her when he said it before, but now she just looks at him.

 

And suddenly he gets it. He gets it all. A moment of clarity that comes from one of those strange places. And it feels like his heart is being ripped to shreds. Not just because she’s ripping it, not because he’s losing everything he ever loved for the second time in his life, but because she’s been brought to this and as much as he never intended for it to happen, he knows it’s his fault.

 

Because as much as he doesn’t want to take back what he did to Deacon, neither does she.

 

“You’re telling yourself a story,” he says. “You’re telling yourself a story and you’re telling yourself you believe it. But deep down, you know it. You’re too damn smart not to.

 

“You're scared. But you're not scared of me. You're scared of you.”

 

She shakes her head but it’s weak and defeated and he wants to yell at her, he wants to scream at her and beg her and plead with her to just stop, to just open her goddamn eyes. He wants to tell her he’s always known about that side of her, that dark feral side. She never even hid it from him. She never needed to. It’s part of the reason he loves her.

 

But he doesn’t yell and he doesn’t scream. He can’t. He loves her too much to expect this from her. He loves her too much to hurt her any more than he has. That hate in her bones - that steel she has deep inside hurts enough.

 

So he takes a step back, listens to the silence of the house, her irregular breathing, the muffled sound of the cars outside.

 

He breathes in, looks around the room and then back at her. Her head is still down and her shoulders are still shaking and he wants to cut his own goddamn tongue out of his head, chop his hands off so he can never ever do anything to hurt her again.

 

“Goddamnit Karen,” he says. “Goddamnit, Karen Page, where the hell are you?”

 

She doesn’t answer, and then somehow he’s turning around, stroking Rosie’s head and making his way to the door, hand reaching for the latch. He doesn’t want to leave. He wants to stay and he wants to fix this, he wants to make it right and not lose this second chance that he has. He also knows that’s not possible.

 

But as he opens the door and a gust of warm night air hits him in the face, she says his name and he turns to look at her.

 

She’s beautiful and it hurts.

 

It always does.

 

“You told me you were home,” she says. “I just wanted us to have a home.”

 

“We did. We do.”

 

“I can't be in that home with you,” she says.

 

He stares at her - stares _through_ her - and she flinches under his gaze.

 

“You already are.”

 

He never lies to her.

 

~~~

 

_Maybe when he thought he chose life, he really chose war._

 

_Maybe there wasn’t any maybe about it._

 

~~~

 

“You're an idiot.”

 

He tells David to shut up but that's never worked in the past so there's no reason it'll work now.

 

“You're just going to let her walk away? After everything?”

 

“Ain't my choice David.”

 

“You sure about that?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

David shakes his head, leans back against his kitchen counter. There’s a half-finished bottle of Rosé as well as some burned out candles and a fresh bouquet of tulips in a vase near the sink and for a second Frank forgets the disaster that is his own life and finds it in himself to be happy that David and Sarah have found some kind of equilibrium.

 

But then David is talking again and he can feel his goodwill evaporating.

 

“It's like a bad joke that just went too far,” he takes a bite out of his sandwich. “We figured you guys would work it all out in a week or so. You were happy Frank. You. Of all people. It was a really good look on you, man. Better than the purple even.”

 

“David...”

 

“I mean Karen’s way out of your league but then again Sarah’s way out of mine and…”

 

“Okay okay okay. Enough.”

 

David shrugs, takes another bite of his sandwich while Frank drinks his coffee. He shouldn’t have come. He thought maybe seeing the Liebermans would make him feel like he belonged to something, like he was connected to the world but so far he just feels worse.

 

When David speaks again his voice is low, gentle. “She's not happy either you know?”

 

“And how would you know that?” Frank puts his empty mug on the counter. “You two girlfriends or something?”

 

“Not me. Sarah.”

 

“Sarah?”

 

David rolls his eyes.

 

“Yeah my wife. Strawberry blonde, beautiful eyes, about so high,” he holds out his hand somewhere just below his shoulder. “She’s a knockout. You might remember throwing yourself in front of her car because you’re a dick who always needs to be one step ahead.”

 

“Come on asshole, I know who Sarah is.”

 

David purses his lips. “Well, they speak. My wife and … Karen.”

 

“What do you mean they speak?”

 

“You know like talking, going out for coffee. Sharing stuff. It's what people in the civilized world do.”

 

“Jesus Christ David, you’re an asshole.”

 

Somewhere upstairs he can hear Leo in her bedroom and he reminds himself to keep his tongue in check, even if David does make it hard.

 

“Yeah, but she's not happy. Sarah says they went wedding dress shopping and she wouldn't even try one on. Seriously Frank it’s a mistake and she knows it.”

 

“Yeah well, she’s had months to think about it and she’s still going through with it. That’s a long time to cling to something she thinks is a mistake.”

 

“Yeah and you've always made perfect decisions.”

 

David finishes his sandwich, stacks his plate and Frank’s mug in the dishwasher.

 

“So what do you want me to to do?” Frank asks. “You want me to tell her she doesn’t know her own mind? Go over there like some kind of entitled ass clown and demand she stop the whole thing?”

 

David folds his arms and Frank can’t shake the feeling that he’s being looked at the same way David would look at a puppy that’s just peed all over the rug when the door was wide open.

 

“Have you tried apologising? You know for the thing you actually did wrong and not the thing that’s just easy to apologise for?”

 

“Ugh, David…”

 

“Well, have you?”

 

Frank sighs, puts a hand to his brow. “You are still relentless you know that?”

 

David hands him a fresh cup of coffee. “So it’s a no then?”

 

Like Karen, David is always fucking right.

 

~~~

 

_The thing about him - the actual truth about him and the way he falls in love is that it always runs hot and deep. Singular and pure. All consuming in a way that leaves him choking and gasping for breath. He doesn't know how else to love. He doesn't know how else to be. It's all or nothing. And that's how it is with her._

 

_He's not going to tell anyone it's healthy. He's not going to claim giving your whole heart to someone like this is a good thing. But it is what it is. So long as she breathes he's never going to love anyone else._

 

~~~

 

The night before the wedding he sends her a text.

 

_I’ve always known and I’ll love you forever. You don’t need to be afraid of who you are. Know that._

 

He waits a long time for a reply, so long that he doesn’t think one is coming, and then way into the early hours of the morning he gets one.

 

_I forgive you._

 

It doesn’t change a damn thing.

 

Except it changes everything.

 

~~~

 

_So this is the beginning of Karen Page’s normal life. This is how she makes her home._

 

_It makes him angry. Not because he loves her even though that’s a part of it, but because she’s not being true to herself. He also realises he drove her to it. At the end of the day this is his fault._

 

_Regardless, Frank can’t watch it. He thought he could. He thought it was something he needed to do to get her out of his system, to be sure it was done and they were done and nothing would ever be the same again. But he doesn’t have it in him. His life is falling apart, but that doesn’t mean he has to watch it explode all over him; he doesn’t have to witness the carnage to know it’s there._

 

_If he leaves now he can be outside before they get to the “I dos”, before he sees Murdock’s hands all over her and watches that smile he once imagined was only for him, given to someone else._

 

_He turns, heads softly down the stairs from the gallery. He’s not in her line of sight so he can slip away without her ever being any the wiser. He knows now he should never have come. He knows now when he punishes what he is really doing in punishing himself._

 

_He turns left at the base of the stairs, heads to a small side door that leads out into the sprawling graveyard at the back of the church. He can’t help but appreciate the appropriateness of this all._

 

_Frank Castle is dead. The Punisher is alive._

 

_She always was the dividing line. It was never muddied or blurred. Life and death. Heaven and hell. Redemption and damnation._

 

_He should have known the end had to come the minute he realised he was falling in love with her._

 

_The door slams harder than he’d hoped behind him and the wind whips his hair, icy rain stinging his face. He doesn’t care. None of it means anything. None of it ever did._

 

_He walks past the graves, mud clinging to his boots and his coat billowing around him like a shroud. He has no idea where he’s going. He has no idea where he wants to go either. There's no place in the world for him._

 

_The wind howls above him and thunder rolls deep and heavy in the distance. He can feel it building in his bones, shaking him apart from the inside._

 

_He’s dead. He’s dead along with his beautiful wife and his three children._

 

_He wants to fall down in the mud, next to the graves, take his place here. Take his place like he should have years ago when the world wanted him out of it and he was just too goddamn stubborn to make it that easy. Before he looked at her and let himself believe that maybe he could still be a part of something good._

 

_Another flash of lightning, closer this time, and then a shriek of thunder that vibrates through him._

 

_He wonders if maybe the universe has given up with the subtler ways of trying to get him out of it. Maybe he needs an act of God to die._

 

_But maybe he needs one to live too._

 

_He hears a window smash and he turns to look. Where the stained glass Madonna was is now a hole._

 

_He carries on walking. There’s nothing he can do. There’s nothing here for him._

 

_And then, behind him, through the rain and the wind, both softer and somehow louder than the storm itself, he hears his name. He hears his name and it sounds like the answer to a prayer._

 

_He turns and everything stops._

 

~~~

 

She makes a beautiful bride. She does. She was always going to. And even now she's beautiful. Now with her hair wet and sticking to her face, her dress muddy and creased, her makeup running in rivers down her cheeks.

 

She's so beautiful.

 

It hurts to look at her.

 

It always has.

 

She says his name again and it’s like he feels her climbing inside of him and tearing him apart, searching out those spaces only she knows about and destroying them. Somewhere in the back of his mind he realises this is a relief. He didn’t have chop off his limbs to feel this again, he just needed to love Karen Page.

 

And loving her is so easy.

 

“Stay,” she says. “Please.”

 

She never had to ask.

 

~~~

 

He takes her away.

 

He walks her through the graves until he can’t see the church behind them anymore, until there’s nothing but shadows around them as they pick their way through the headstones. The rain has stopped but the wind is still icy and he gives her his coat, tugs it around her shoulders and tries not to forget himself when he looks into her eyes.

 

Her dress is wet and flecked with mud. It was beautiful once but it’ll never be the same again.

 

Maybe nothing else will either.

 

He finds he’s okay with that. It’s won’t be the first time he’s had to start over again. He prays it will be the last.

 

They stop by a low stone bench surrounded by white rose bushes and hidden beneath the fronds of a large oak. She reaches out and takes his hand, tugs him towards it and for a long while they sit in silence, watching the rain fall, listening to the sound of the thunder.

 

Eventually she speaks and her voice makes him feel like the world is folding in on itself, like there's both too much and too little air in it.

 

“Why did you come?”

 

_Why did you?_

 

He sighs. “To see you. To see for myself that you were gone. To stop hoping.”

 

“And did you?”

 

He snorts. He has the distinct impression that this isn't real. He feels out of step and out of place like he's watching himself in a movie.

 

He looks at her, her wet hair, her dirty dress.

 

“For about a minute. From the moment I walked out until I saw you behind me.”

 

She nods.

 

“You're hoping now?”

 

He barks out a laugh.

 

“Damnit Karen, I already told you I'm always gonna love you. Always. Forever. I don’t know how else to do it.”

 

He wonders now if maybe that's what forever meant when they said it. Maybe it didn't mean they could be together. Maybe it just meant they'd always want to.

 

He looks at her and her face is unreadable, her eyes bright and intense in a way he’s never seen them before. He was wrong about her melancholy being her something blue. It was always her eyes.

 

She squeezes his hand, brings it to her mouth and kisses his knuckles.

 

“I'm always going to love you too. This… this thing we have. It goes too far. It goes too deep.”

 

It does. There isn't room for anyone else. There isn’t room for a lot of things.

 

He nods. “I know. I’m sorry.”

 

“Don’t be,” she slips her fingers between his. “Not for this. Not for us.”

 

They sit in silence for a few minutes. He listens to the sound of the rain, the muffled drone of the traffic … Karen’s gentle breathing next to him. The truth is he doesn’t know what to think, what to expect. He’s wanted this for so long, wanted the chance to be with her, to talk to her, to put all the darkness away and now that he has it, he has no idea what to do with it.

 

“Why are you here?” he asks. “What changed your mind?”

 

She frowns, doesn't look at him.

 

“Everything … nothing. Your message and then I saw you…” she trails off. “I saw you and I saw my whole life. I saw _me_ Frank. I saw who I really am and I didn’t want to hide it…” she stops. “I’m not making sense.”

 

No, no she isn’t, but he gets it anyway.

 

“It’s okay,” he says.

 

“This whole thing got away from me and that’s on me. I thought I could make it right if I just wished for it hard enough. If I just pretended hard enough. But then I realised as I was standing there with Matt that I knew I couldn't forsake all others because that had to include myself.”

 

There’s a lot of relief in her voice as she says it, a lot of hard truth too. But she’s not done and when she turns to him, she looks him straight in the eye and her words take the breath out of his lungs.

 

“I’d already promised that to someone else.”

 

For a long time, he just looks at her. He remembers how he lost himself to her years and years ago. How she fought her way in despite his protestations and how afterwards he never wanted her to leave.

 

She’s everything. She always has been.

 

“So you’re not going to marry him then?”

 

It’s a stupid question - one he already knows the answer to - but he has to ask. He has to know.

 

She shakes her head.

 

“You wanna marry me instead?”

 

She snorts and he grins. He can still make her laugh and maybe that's a start. Maybe this is what they need. Maybe he can still make her happy. But then she turns to him and he watches as a rivulet of black mascara runs down her cheek and he doesn’t have to ask if it’s rain or tears.

 

“I love you,” she says. “I love you so much and I’m sorry too. You didn’t deserve any of this. Neither did Matt.”

 

She breaks his heart. She’s merciless and she breaks it wide open and climbs inside, pushes out all the bits he’s been clinging to and trying to stitch back together, and finds a way to keep it beating.

 

He takes a ragged breath. “You had to try. I get it.”

 

She glances back in the direction of the church. “I didn’t need to let it get this far.”

 

“We don’t always make perfect decisions.”

 

She blinks, looks away from him and he moves closer to her, slides his hand into her hair and cups her jaw.

 

“Hey,” he says. “It’s okay.”

 

“It's not.”

 

“Then it's not. But we can work it out.”

 

She’s quiet for a while but she doesn’t look away and he realises she’s waiting for something, winding herself up until she can get the words out and put them into the world. And when she does he feels like she’s breaking him in half all over again.

 

“You were right Frank,” she turns her head and kisses his palm. “You were right about me.”

 

“Was I?”

 

She nods. “I did lie to you. I lied when I said I wasn't big enough for what you are. Because I am. I am and that scared me…”

 

She’s right. She’s cutting right to the core of him and showing him all his ugliness and he can’t stop her. He doesn’t want to stop her.

 

“You do need a war but maybe I need one too.”

 

Her words drop like stones, heavy and flat, and in the moment of silence that follows he thinks about the fact that he always knew this. His shadows sought out hers the same way her light sought his. And he never asked, he never questioned it. Night after night she held him while his grief shook around in his bones, while his agony tore him apart only to put him back together and start all over again. He wept inside her heart, he drowned them both in his tears and not once did he ask why. He assumed that she would tell him when she was ready.

 

He shifts on the bench and he brings his forehead to rest on hers, closes his eyes and feels her breath on his face as she speaks.

 

“But you were right. I was telling myself a story. I was pretending it was about you when it was also about me. I’m scared of me. I’m scared of that part of you I see in me. I’m scared of how much I love it and what it says about me.”

 

He swallows, fingers tightening in her hair. He can smell her perfume mixing with the petrichor in the air and that sweet hint of cherry lipgloss.

 

“Karen…”

 

She’s crying again and he can feel her shaking, her breath coming out hard and fast.

 

“There are things I haven’t told you. Bad things. People I’ve hurt. The reason I carry a gun…”

 

“I know.”

 

“I want to tell you those things now. I want to tell you what I've done. I want to tell you why this part of me scares me so much. I want to tell you terrible things and I want you to love me anyway.”

 

He pulls her close, drags her into him and she presses her face into his shirt and for a moment nothing matters. Nothing matters at all. Not the months of hell he’s been through, not the rain and the thunder, not Murdock, not even Abigail or Deacon or the things that lurk in the shadows. Nothing matters but her and him and how he’s holding her and hushing her and how her arms are tight around his middle and he never ever wants to let her go again.

 

He kisses her hair, her forehead, her temple.

 

“I do. I will.”

 

“I can ask that of _you_ ,” she says.

 

“You can.”

 

“You need a war,” she says again. “But you need a home too … and so do I. And that has to be more important. It has to. For both of us.”

 

And he has so many questions. So many about how they can make this work, about how he wants to give her everything he can and how he might fail, how scared he is of failing. How he can’t let his life fall apart again and how he won’t let her go down with him. But he only asks one and it doesn't even feel like he's asking it. It feels like it's being pulled out of the back of his throat by something unknown and frightening. Something determined to make him see his own destruction.

 

_Is this forever?_

 

She pulls back and looks up at him, hand coming up to cup his jaw. Her fingers are strong as they press into his skin and she's not gentle. She's not gentle at all. But maybe the time for gentleness has passed. Maybe this needs to be spoken harshly, felt right in the marrow of his bones.

 

“Yes. Yes it is. And it’s long and it’s tough, but it is,” she says and her voice is hard and firm. “Will you forgive me?”

 

He will.

 

Without question. Without caveat.

 

~~~

 

In time the rain stops and, despite the still heavy thunderclouds, the world looks bright and beautiful, water dripping like little crystals from the leaves and trickling gently over his skin, sparkling brighter than the pins in her hair. The wind is still blowing and he’s cold and so is she but she’s leaning on him and he’s scared to move, terrified that he can break the spell.

 

He realises he could stay here forever - die out of the elements - just for another moment of this.

 

But then she shifts against him and he has to make himself let her go.

 

She looks back towards the church.

 

“I can't go back in there.”

 

“So don't.”

 

“I can't stay out here either.”

 

He moves then, lowers himself onto his knees in the mud in front of her.

 

“Come with me then. Come with me. Karen, I can’t promise you it’s going to be easy. This ain’t easy. _We_ ain’t easy. But I’m going to love you no matter what. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done. I love you for you. I always have.” He realises he’s begging. He’s begging when he doesn’t need to. He’s begging even though she’s already said yes. He’s begging because it feels good to beg from her. Because it’s the only thing he wants to do for the rest of his life.

 

She considers him for a second and then she stands, lets him wrap his arms around her waist, kiss her belly where their child once grew, and then finally she sinks down next to him, puts her arms around him, buries her head in his shoulder.

 

Her dress is filthy. He doesn’t think it can ever be cleaned again but somehow that seems right. There shouldn’t be any going back. Not anymore.

 

He looks at the white roses, how they’re weighed down by the rainwater but somehow still beautiful and casting off little crystal kaleidoscopes of colour in the dim light. He looks at the grey sky overhead and he swears he sees a hint of blue.

 

And then he doesn’t look for anything else. He turns his face into her hair, kisses her neck and her shoulder and breathes her in.

 

He's here now and he'll help her carry her darkness.

 

~~~

 

They find their way back to each other. They always do.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been wanting to explore the Kastle dynamic against this kind of a backdrop for a while now. For a long time I have maintained that it is not the way in which Karen and Frank are different that draws them to one another but rather the ways they are the same. I get the whole “sunshine girl” to his dark brooding somewhat Byronic hero. I really do. But I have often felt that a reading like that of Karen and Frank misses a lot of who they really are, specifically who Karen really is, and frankly, how dark she can be. 
> 
> My take on them since the second Karen starts to defend his actions to Matt and Foggy in Daredevil, has always been that she sees the same darkness in Frank as she does in herself. I think initially that both frightens and excites her - I also think that after the events of The Punisher she has started to come to terms with it. Furthermore I think the same can be said of Frank. That’s not to say that he doesn’t see her goodness - of course he does (and she sees his) - just that they don’t hide their true selves from one another and sometimes those true selves can be uglier and scarier than they would like. They find comfort and a sense of peace in one another and part of that is the fact that they both carry a lot of darkness and dare I say, ruthlessness. 
> 
> So with this fic I wanted to push that aspect of them, really go deep into what that means and how they - and specifically Karen - would deal with it. At the same time I wanted to explore a few other things and really get into the nitty gritty of what the two of them loving each other might mean. 
> 
> Hence this is a story about what it might be like if love isn’t enough (and what if it is), how someone who loves Frank would deal with the side of him that craves the violence and the bloodlust and consequently, how he would deal with a possible repetition or reminder of what happened before. 
> 
> Furthermore I wanted to look at what it means to be “home” in the sense of how The Punisher TV series portrayed it for Frank. In other words I wanted to look at what home means, why it means what it does, and who gets to live in it. Make no mistake I didn't think the scene when Frank let go of Maria was all negative - the fact is he chose life over being with her in death, but it was also about him accepting who and what he is and that maybe war is home. Something like that doesn’t go away just because you love someone. Trauma like Frank has doesn’t go away just because someone loves you either.
> 
> Then, at the same time I wanted to do a similar thing for Karen because Karen is different from Maria and probably more equipped to deal with The Punisher side of his personality than someone like Maria was. But the question I wanted to ask there is “why?” and “what does that say about Karen and who she is and who she wants to be that this is the case?”. I wanted to explore her wrestling with her own demons and her own feelings about who she is deep inside.
> 
> I wanted to look at the ways in which people make bad decisions or decisions that we think don’t make sense. I wanted to look at how different emotions over different things intersect and diverge. I wanted to look at how they feed into each other and make things difficult to navigate.
> 
> And hence this story is what came out. 
> 
> So I hope you enjoyed it and if you did, please leave me a review.


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